


it's your extension (let me extend)

by maridoll



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, aka read it slow when theres a break bc its there for a reason, anyway i experimented w the style on this one and i like how it turned out, special formatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 11:15:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maridoll/pseuds/maridoll
Summary: ace aches to experience something beyond the borders of his small mountain village. sabo is desperate for a break in the routine that comes with living in the city.switching places was something they never expected to happen. it's also something they have to work through, together.





	it's your extension (let me extend)

**Author's Note:**

> i agonized over this one for a solid month and a half. its over twice as long as f&f, which took me about a week to write, and its not complete trash, so its definitely the best highest word count/fastest time ratio. 
> 
> anyway i deliberately didnt tag what au this is. if youve seen the movie this is based off of youll pick it up pretty quickly. i cant believe it took me this long to see it but since iye/lme came as a result, it worked out.
> 
> there are like. faint references to japan like shinjuku that i decided not to change, jus go w it.

he reminds ace of his mother.

light, blond hair hanging just past his nape; piercing eyes that hold an array of emotions, none of them harsh; fair, fair skin, and if he squints he can envision a smattering of freckles dusted onto his cheeks, not unlike his own. he cards a hand through the hair; his eyes narrow. 

he can see her.

  
  
  
  


the scar catches him off-guard. it’s not noticeable until he parts the hair a little, but then there it is, stark as day, red ragged lines breaking up the pale skin. it’s not until he takes off the old sweatshirt functioning as a pajama top that he realizes the extent of the damage.

the red ran all down his left side. cutting into his shoulder, up his neck; circling around his ribs, and he turns to see it nearly to his spine on his back; down to his thighs, to his knees, just barely on the border of red on his calves; his arm is littered with white scars and red burn marks, and he finds himself growing curious. whatever it was from, it was Big. 

it was intentional.

ace blinks and the movement echoes in the mirror, blue eyes gazing back at him. and he blanches, finally waking, finally realizing _ no _ , this was _ not _ normal, this was _ actually _ happening he brings both pale hands up to his face, tries to hide his eyes. his breath stutters.

a shrill alarm sounds and he jumps, spinning around to find a discarded phone on the bed going off. he moves over to it and it reads _ koala _ on the id and he panics and taps ‘ignore’ and lets his heart calm down.

the alarm goes off again and he jumps _ again _ and picks up the phone, almost ready to turn it off, when he finds its an _ actual _ alarm going off. ‘you’re late at this point’, it reads. ‘good luck’, it reads. 

ace turns it off and takes a seat on the bed, head falling into his hands. stringy blond locks fall around him. 

what the fuck. this isn’t what he wished for. he wanted-

and he sits up, sudden, limbs jerking in protest. he climbs the rest of the way onto the bed, towards the small window in the corner, and pulls a blind open, peering out.

a view of goa greets him. traffic, towers, teems of people absolutely everywhere.

ace slowly closes the blind, turns around, and sinks back onto the bed. he takes a deep breath, in and out. 

“THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!” he shouts from the top of his lungs. when he said he wanted to live in the city, to be in the city-

when he wished he were reincarnated as-

“am i dead?” he breathes. only the quiet answers him back.

-

sabo rolls over in his sleep, prying his eyes open. he breathes out in a huff, squinting as he realizes he can see through the slats of the door. what, did he fall asleep at his desk again? and then fall out of the chair? that seemed a bit impossible, so then why . .

he tips his head, and his cheek brushes fabric, and he hums, realizing there was something _ under _ him under the floor. 

before he can process that, the door slams open. sabo’s eyes widen as he’s met with little feet, and then he looks up, meeting the gaze of a scrawny kid.

“ace, get _ up _ already!” the kid snaps. “we already ate all of the food! if you’re not ready in ten minutes, i’m _ leaving you _.”

he slams the door back into place, and sabo lies there, eyes blown and mind wide awake.

he’s so taken in by the kid’s words that for a second he finds himself scrambling up, counting down the seconds, remembering the time limit.

then he turns around and realizes he was asleep on a futon and he was in a wooden room and he trips on his way to look out the window before grasping the sill, raising his head above it, and his jaw drops as he’s met with a sprawling lake view, and of a whole community painted into the sides of a mountain. _ no, not a mountain _, his mind helpfully supplies. the sides of a crater.

he blinks and his gaze zooms until he’s gazing at his own reflection, except it’s not him in the window. it’s a boy with tanned skin and long, black hair that fell just to his shoulders. they were broad, and he frowns, looking down as he runs a hand down the washboard chest, bare. damn. his eyes catch on a red band looped around his wrist, tied in a sloppy knot. he tugs and it comes loose, unraveling easily, and he hums as he spies a few other colors near the end.

“ace! let’s _ go _!” a voice calls from somewhere deeper in the house, and sabo scrambles to his feet again, dropping the band on the ground. he swivels his head until he spots a uniform hanging from a closet door. it’s nondescript, so he hopes there’s only one school in this small town, else he go to the wrong one.

. . on second thought, with the kid leading him, maybe not.

he patters over to it, pausing once he grabs the hangers to look at his reflection in an actual mirror. oh. okay. so this was actually happening. he was in the body of someone named-

he stops. blinks. no. this had to be a dream, right?

he throws the white shirt over his head, tugging the collar down, and hums to himself in affirment as he works on the pants. right. this was a dream. had to be. 

he’s slipping on the jacket when the kid barges in again, comes over, grabs him by the back of the jacket, and begins to shove him out of the room. “now! come on! we gotta go!”

“o-okay,” he voices, marveling at the change in pitch to what he was used to. deeper, slightly. he spies the red band again and lunges for it, tumbling out of the kid’s hold for a moment. “wait,” he breathes, grasping it, and then the kid’s on him again, pushing him towards the door.

“ace!” he whines. “come on!”

“luffy!” a voice calls from somewhere below. they exit the room and sabo spies a figure near the bottom of a staircase. “you’re going to be late!”

“coming!” luffy yells, still pushing him as sabo struggles to get his bearings, still grasping at the change in scenery. he clutches the red band tightly.

-

ace stumbles from the room, marveling at the change in height. the guy had a few on him, that was for sure. he moves down the hall, passing the simple furnishings until he’s in the frame of the kitchen entry, nose twitching at the smell of stale food.

a woman looks up from her phone at the small table for two, eyeing him for a moment before humming and looking back down. after another moment, she removes herself from the chair, shuffling around some dishes. “what was that shouting about earlier?” she asks, gesturing for ace to take her seat. he does, sliding down and picking up the extra pair of chopsticks.

“uh, nothin’,” ace mutters, mouth already full of leftover food.

“right.” the woman rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling a moment later. “well, i’m out. there should be another train leaving in half an hour. you have until then to get ready.”

“‘kay,” ace mumbles, nodding as she waves and exits the room. a moment later, a door shuts from the end of the hall. ace finishes the food soon after and sighs, setting the chopsticks down. 

school, then. 

he wanders back into the bedroom and approaches the uniform hanging from the back of a chair. the first issue was getting there, which . .

he glances at the phone. koala would know, right?

but, as soon as he thinks it, he lets the thought go. 

he opts to take a picture of the crest stitched to the blazer instead, doing a reverse image search to determine which goa school it belonged to. a result pops up pretty handily, and he hums, putting it into a map. oh. so, it was pretty far. he glances to the window again.

after a moment, he searches the map for the nearest train station. not close either.

. . . his gaze moves back to the window.

ace sighs, slumping where he stood. there was no way he was catching that next train. he’d be lucky if he made it there by noon.

why was city life so hard?

after he’s gotten dressed and grabbed a bag, he stuffs whatever he can think of down into it. phone charger. notebook. wallet. pencil. sketchbook? he blinks, eyeing it for a moment, then shoves it in as well. no harm, right?

he moves back across the apartment and pauses at the mouth of the kitchen, gaze fixed on the small dishes still set out on the table. sighing, he slides the backpack off his shoulder and steps forward. right. there was no gramps to clean them up, so he’d have to do it himself then.

he pauses again after locking the front door, keys halfway shoved into his pocket. he didn’t even know this guy’s name. well, it probably wouldn’t be long until he did, but hopefully it wouldn’t cause any problems.

catching the train is a rush. ace sits in a seat very close to the door, sighing as everything begins to move. while he waits, he takes out the phone again and looks through it, trying to find anything to help him out. he ends up tapping on a social media app, and when the screen loads, hums.

“sabo, huh?” he mutters under his breath. okay. he could work with that.

-

sabo doesn’t have to worry about luffy guiding him, because they run into some people he apparently should know.

“ace!”

the word is a single, concise syllable, spoken loud and with momentum, and, more importantly, from right behind him. sabo jumps, just about crawls out of his skin, and spins around to see a girl just about his height looking at him funny, lips pursed, and a hand poised to chop his head. he steps back more, glancing over at luffy, who huffs out a sigh.

“i’ll meet you at home,” he says, motioning to a fork in the path ahead. one slopes down, curving a little around the cliffside, and the other continues upward, towards the crest. “whatever’s going on, i hope you’re _ over it _ by then.” with another odd glance, luffy tightens his hold on his backpack straps and takes off down the path. sabo is left alone, and turns to watch as a boy approaches the girl, and therefore him, as well, pushing a bike at his side.

“nothing’s going on?” he mutters, even though that’s an obvious lie. whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it wrong.

“are you sure?” the girl says, crossing her arms. “because it looks like you couldn’t even be bothered to brush your hair this morning.”

sabo blinks, reaching up to tug on one of the black strands. he thought it’d been naturally unruly. guess not.

“whatever. let’s go already.” she turns and nods to the other boy, then grabs sabo by the arm and pulls him into a walk alongside them. her eyes turn down and she makes a little noise in the back of her throat. “you brought your ribbon and you’re not even using it?”

sabo glances down as well, spying his impulse grab hanging from his hand. he lifts it. “ribbon?” it didn’t look like it.

the girl shrugs, waving a hand. “might as well be. look, if you didn’t have time to do your hair, you can just say so. but we’re not even there yet. i have a mirror if you need it.”

she fumbles for her bag, searching through it, and then frowns. “nevermind. hey, kidd, you got one?”

“always,” he boasts, passing over a small pocket mirror with ease. sabo takes it, frowning. he looks down and attempts to pat the hair down, and then glances again to the band in his other hand. so, if it functioned like a ribbon . .

well. that made sense.

he hands the mirror back and holds the band in his teeth, using his hands to situate the long black hair. then he grabs the red with one hand and strings it around, until it held the hair in a loose knot. he glances over at the other two after finishing, waiting for approval. the girl shrugs after a moment. 

“good enough, i guess.”

sabo sighs out in relief, and then they’re in front of the school and kidd’s parking his bike and something chimes in the far distance. they grab for each of his arms and pull him through the front doors, moving quickly to a classroom. it’s not until they’re inside that he realizes another dilemma. people were still moving in, and there were open seats.

he reaches back to grab the girl’s arm, a small look of panic fixed on his face despite his best efforts. “where do i sit . . ?”

her eyes widen, and she stares at him. and stares. stares.

then, very calmly, she blinks and points to a desk near a window, almost in the corner of the room. sabo just nods, head down, and moves toward it.

-

ace moves down the hall slowly, still paging through a twitter feed on the phone. there were background shots of a classroom, and it had a high window, which meant the second floor. if only there was a glimpse of a number, then he’d really be set-

“sabo!” a shout echoes down the hall, making ace throw his head up. a redhead marches toward him, looking pissed, and he blanches, turning the phone off and trying to straighten out.

“uh, whatever i did, i can explain,” he says, because ace has always been about resolving conflict. then he mentally slaps himself, because that was the _ worst possible _ thing he could’ve said. he didn’t know the first thing about sabo, much less what he did to piss off the girl so much.

“you better!” she huffs, stabbing a finger into his chest. ace takes it with a wince. “ignoring my call like that! how dare you.”

so it was his fault, then. “i thought it was my alarm,” he says quickly. “it went off right after your call. sorry.” okay, so maybe not exactly true, but it would work. he eyes the girl in a new light. so this was koala.

she crosses her arms over her chest. “which one? had to be the ‘you’re late anyway, so hurry up’ one, right? how can you be here at noon?” she sighs. “it’s lunch, for god’s sake!”

“sorry,” ace says again.

her lips purse. “fine. i won’t press. c’mon, it’s stuffy in here, let’s eat outside.”

eat. his expression changes as he realizes. koala glances at him and rolls her eyes.

“you forgot lunch, didn’t you?”

he did, and he’s kinda hungry. he claps his hands together. “please share?”

“you’re lucky i like you,” koala mutters, jerking a door open.

koala insists he come to a cafe with her after school, and ace’s mouth waters at the thought. the closest they had out in fuusha was an old vending machine on top of the crest. inside, it’s crowded with people, but koala squeezes them into a two-seater and props up a menu, then begins rambling about the day. ace tunes her out, eyes widening as he glances at all the pictures. he wanted to try them all.

“that’s a lot of money,” koala comments, and he realizes he’d spoken aloud. ace looks up, then digs in his bag, looking into his wallet. he lets out a sigh.

“yeah, guess you’re right.” he hums, flipping the page and spotting a piece of cheesecake dripping with strawberry sauce. his mouth waters again. “then, i’ll just take this one.”

halfway through their meal, ace’s phone pings. he picks it up carelessly, smiling, too busy enjoying his cake. the text makes him reconsider.

koala pauses in her movements upon noticing his expression. “what’s wrong?”

“i’m late for work,” ace tells her. _ apparently. _

“oh, you had a shift?” she waves him off. “go, then. i don’t mind.”

“yea, thanks.” he stands, pocketing his phone, and stuffs the last of the cake into his mouth in a big bite. koala doesn’t comment.

he walks off a few paces, spins around on his heel, and comes back to tap koala on the shoulder. “uh, where do i work again?”

her brows raise to her hairline.

-

sabo wakes slowly.

he’s balanced on the edge of the bed, curled up like he doesn’t know there’s supposed to be a drop. it’s jarring, and as soon as his phone begins to vibrate, his body jerks and he’s on the floor, crashed in a heap with the comforter curled around his legs.

with a moderate groan, he reaches up and silences his phone.

the door opens a moment later, as he’s rubbing his head. red hair is his only giveaway before shanks is fully in the room, peering down at him. “whoa there, kid. took a tumble, huh?”

“i’m good,” sabo mumbles, sitting up. he blinks, screwing his eyes to cast the sleep away. “had the strangest dream.”

“let’s talk about it over breakfast, kay?” he jerks a thumb over his head. “makino has it ready.”

makino is already gone, too, apparently, because it’s just him and shanks at the table. it only sits two anyway, so it’s not often all three of them eat together. still.

sabo squints, picking up his chopsticks and trying to recall. “i was some kid living out in a mountain village for a day. had an annoying little brother and everything.”

shanks hums, swallowing his bite of food. “sounds boring.”

sabo snorts. “great, thanks for your input.” he pauses again. “it just . . felt so real.”

later, sabo will go back to his room and pick apart his backpack, confusion on his face for every random item he pulls out. he pauses at one point, hand wrapped loosely around the spine of his sketchbook. definitely didn’t remember taking that out of his room. what did he even draw, he thinks, flipping through to the last filled page-

he stops. his hand trembles. the forgotten page flips over, and the front half of the book hangs limp in the air. he stares at the page.

‘who are you?’ is written there, in big, blocky letters, scratched over and over by a worn pen.

-

“are you gonna play with your hair again?” luffy asks, entirely unimpressed, as he pulls open the door to ace’s room, looking to his elder brother warily. ace blinks the remaining sleep from his eyes, sits up fully.

“what?”

luffy huffs. “nevermind.” he begins to slide the door shut. “at least you’re up today.”

ace frowns at the comment, then immediately turns to look out the window. the sun was barely peeking out over the edge of the crest, as usual when he woke. he sighs and stumbles to his feet, electing to ignore luffy’s comment. 

breakfast with garp is a quiet affair. he eyes ace warily, but doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary, more of the usual. ace has to pull luffy away from the table, again, per usual. he sighs as he closes the front door, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck. luffy grumbles at his side, wiping rice from the corner of his mouth.

he takes luffy halfway to school, then watches as he runs down the path with zoro and nami, sprinting in a race to see who can reach the grounds first. ace continues up the slope by himself, and doesn’t stop until he’s sliding his classroom door open, tugging his scarf a little looser in the heated environment. 

he’s sitting his bag down on his desk when the door slams open, and he turns calmly while a few others jump, entirely expecting this kind of entrance. lami pinpoints him immediately and stalks up to him, kidd not far behind. ace stands at attention, turning to face her-

and makes a noise of protest as she grabs his cheeks, pulling his face closer to hers for easier inspection. 

it’s a few tense moments of silence before he frowns, features distorted. “can i help you?” he says, words muffled by the pull of his lips. lami’s frown mirrors his own, and she releases him.

“are you back to normal?” she says, hands on her hips. ace only turns to look at kidd behind her, silently asking for help. the edhead steps up with a muffled snort.

“you were . . weird, yesterday,” he admits. “your hair was a mess, you were all spaced out, you couldn’t remember where you sat-”

“you got all of crocus’ questions right!” lami snaps. “his insanely hard, out-of-thin-air pop questions! you got them all right. answered like it wasn’t even a challenge. like you knew the ins and outs of the material already.” she crosses her arms. “you better not upstage us all again today.”

ace blanches. “what? you’re lying. that’s impossible.” and his hair . . ? he reaches up, fingering the braided cord that held the black locks in a high ponytail. 

lami shakes her head. “no, i’m serious. you were weird yesterday.” she echoes kidd’s words and the redhead nods, confirming. 

“well, whatever,” he grumbles, turning away, a bit put-out. “i’m fine now. okay? let’s just forget about it.”

the door opens, and in ambles crocus, old hips still in desperate need of replacement. he takes a stand behind the podium and pauses as he finds ace. “hm. portgas.”

ace lifts his chin, eyes narrowing. after a few tense moments, their teacher turns away, looking back down to his papers. everyone finds their seats after that. 

-

‘who are you?’ echoes over and over in sabo’s mind, as much as he can allow it. school is vicious today, the teachers going hard and not leaving anyone a moment’s rest. it’s not until everything is done for the day that sabo can break away, and that’s when koala approaches him, a wary look marring her gaze.

“what’s up with being late yesterday?” her eyes narrow as she comes to a full stop right in front of him. “y’know, if you were gonna show up halfway through the day, why’d you even come at all?”

“late?” sabo blinks. as he could recall, he was here a half hour early, like today, like always. 

“yeah.” she huffs. “you were late to work, too. listen, are you feeling better, at least?”

sabo’s hairs begin to stand. “yesterday,” he says, very slowly, “i didn’t have a shift.” 

“what?” koala’s eyes begin to ignite. “then you just ditched me? what the hell, sabo!”

“what are you on?” sabo snaps back, trying to make sense of it all. “we were together all afternoon. we split crepes! remember?”

koala’s mouth opens, but she remains silent. her brows scrunch, and the fire dies out. “that was monday,” she recalls. 

sabo shrugs, still off-put. “yeah?”

“sabo, it’s wednesday.”

he blinks. blinks again. “no-” he begins, but before he can finish, koala’s whipped her phone out and is showing him the date.

he stands very still. a shiver runs through his body.

“why . . can’t i remember?” 

-

lami and kidd wrangle him away for the afternoon, walking while the bite of the cold wasn’t too bad. unluckily for him, the path they take leads into a head-on collision with one of dragons’ rallies. ace can hear his speech before he sees the crowd, and then he’s hissing to himself in panic, ducking down behind kidd’s lanky form. the redhead scoffs, but doesn’t move.

“i guess it is election time,” lami notes, gaze wandering over. 

“wonder why he bothers,” kidd says. “he’s bound to get reelected anyway.”

ace frowns, eyes still facing the ground. he doesn’t want to hear dragon, or see him, but most importantly, he doesn’t want dragon to see _ him. _

a pause in the speech reaches his ears. lami moves closer to the pair. “hey, heads up-” she begins to mutter.

“ace!” dragon calls, and he closes his eyes, jerking to a stop. slowly, his eyes move until he meets his father’s over the heads of the crowd. he doesn’t look very pleased. “straighten out already!” he calls.

ace forces out an exhale and moves out from behind kidd, standing taller. he turns his gaze back to the road and starts moving, quicker this time. he feels dragon’s eyes on him all the while, but what’s more, the eyes of the crowd as they turn to face him, as they turn to witness the town mayor mocking his eldest _ yet again _-

“don’t let him bother you,” lami says, once they’re out of earshot. she turns to kidd, giving him a pointed look. “hey, let’s go to your mom’s shop?”

“diner,” kidd corrects. he frowns, knowing more than anything that it wasn’t a question. but, well, it was still too early for dad to be home. “sure,’ he sighs, giving in. immediately, ace perks up at the prospect of food.

“sacha!” lami calls, just as they burst through the doors. an older woman comes out from the back room, wiping her hands with a towel. her gaze brightens as it lands on the three.

“oh! come in, come in.” she puts her hands on her hips as they all pile into a table. “so, how was school?”

“horrible!” ace groans. “crocus kept asking me all these questions i couldn’t answer. and only me!”

from beside him, kidd snickers. lami pokes ace with her elbow. “it’s because you were a smartass yesterday.”

ace huffs, slumping to the tabletop. “sacha, they’re being mean to me!” he whines. “please, the only thing that can help is food! please feed me!”

sacha rolls her eyes at the act. “sure. whatever you say.” she winks to the other two, already turning towards the back. “i’ll bring some stuff right out.”

“thanks, mom!” kidd calls. lami echoes his words, and then they’re both turning to ace, who’s still slumped against the table.

“hey,” lami says suddenly. “fuck dragon. don’t think about it.”

ace hums, head still buried in his arms.

if only.

-

sabo has the dream again.

he sets upright, and everything is at a lower angle, and pieces of stiff, black hair fall in front of his eyes. he hums, thinks nothing of it. okay. so it was a do-over dream. maybe he could do better this time.

luffy opens his door with a short _ bang _ some time later, and pauses for a moment to eye him with trepidation. sabo cocks his head to face him, but otherwise continues bouncing his newly-acquired black locks. he couldn’t help it -he’d never had hair this long. 

“breakfast!” luffy snaps. he closes the door with the same amount of force he’d opened it with, and it hits the frame harshly. sabo’s hand drops from his hair, finally.

breakfast is, unfortunately, not a quiet affair. sabo has to fight over rice, fish, soup -everything, really- until it’s all properly dished out. a little radio in the corner of the room blares out about town hall news, and sabo cocks his head to it as he nibbles on some meat, swiping his chopsticks out to keep Luffy from his rice.

_ “also, in regards to the upcoming mayoral election-” _

garp has already stood up by this point, and pulls the plug on the old machine before the announcer could continue. he comes back to the table in the newly quiet atmosphere, and luffy sets down elbows up on the glass top, sighing.

“you really should make up with him already,” he grumbles. “both of you,” he adds, turning that glare to sabo. sabo only blinks, not knowing the context of the words, and chooses to resume eating in quiet rather than respond.

“it’s an adult problem, kid,” garp grunts, setting down his empty bowl. “go on, now. get ready for school.”

luffy lets out a long-lastings sigh as he throws himself to his feet. “right,” he says, letting the word drag out, and drags himself from the room. sabo sets down his rice bowl after his last bite, nodding to garp.

“thanks for the food,” he mumbles, standing as well. garp grunts, but grabs for sabo before he can pass by completely. sabo pauses, looking over his shoulder.

“don’t forget, the ceremony is in a few days.”

that’s all he says, then he releases sabo. he doesn’t know the context, again, so he just nods and hurries up the stairs back to ace’s room.

the red band isn’t around his wrist this time, and it takes a bit of digging around, but he does find it in a spare drawer. he takes a brush through the thick locks, then binds it into a low ponytail at the base of his neck. if a knot wasn’t right last time, maybe this was. he uses the band in place of an elastic, pulling it tight, and nods once he’s satisfied.

luffy is waiting for him downstairs. he bounces on his feet, using both hands and a loud voice to say bye to their grandpa. sabo just nods, and garp nods back, letting them go. 

lami and kidd run into him before the pathway splits, and luffy looks on in indifference until lami has him on her shoulders, and then he’s squealing with delight or annoyance -sabo can’t tell. it only takes a moment for her to set him on the handlebars of kidd’s bike, and the redhead breaks out into a jog, balancing luffy, who does enjoy this one -evident by him throwing his arms over his head and shouting in joy. lami loops sabo’s arm through her own and they follow at their own pace. when the pathway splits, they help luffy down and he waves them off, continuing towards his own school.

sabo finds his seat by the window, but once class starts, he can’t focus. it’s all stuff he’s learned already, so he spends time instead jotting stuff down in a blank page of the notebook. ace’s family was two people. his brother, luffy, and his grandfather. there’s a third person him and ace share in conflict with. he has two close friends, lami and kidd. kidd is the son of a electrical contractor -the guy who controlled all power out here in the town. which, technically speaking, seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. the high school sat over the ridge, and it was all sabo could see for miles around -that was, nothing but rolling hills. 

“_ portgas _,” a voice says gruffly, enough to grate sabo’s ears, and he looks up to find the entire class staring at him. his brows furrow, until he meet the teacher’s gaze, locked on him. sabo swallows, setting down his pen. 

“yes?”

crocus lets out an overdue sigh. “nice of you to finally respond. define ‘twilight’ for me.”

sabo blinks, then stands in one clean motion, nodding. “it’s . . a time between night and day,” he finally settles on, unsure of what the man was looking for. he’d gotten all the questions right last time, but they only served to annoy him. and also bring on more questions. sabo wasn’t exactly sure how to respond here to get it right this time.

crocus grins, and sabo feels a little nervousness run about. “not quite what i was looking for.” he gestures with his hand, and sabo sits down, confusion growing.

“‘twilight’ is neither day nor night. it’s a time when the two become blurred. where all the funny stuff happens. afterlight, in other words. right before dusk.”

“what about half-light?” kidd pipes up, hand slightly raised. crocus allows the outburst, humming.

“that’s more local dialect, but, yes.”

sabo lets down his guard again, and goes back to doodling, scribbling notes in the columns. 

he finds the diary after school.

it’s a small pocketbook, easily overlooked. call sabo curious, though, for upturning the room. ace is organized, and his small script is neat. reading through the entries doesn’t help, though. sabo sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. guess he had to do this on his own. well, for a do-over dream, he thinks he did rather well. if it happened again, maybe he’d get to finish learning what he only discovered this time around.

he’s settling down on the futon when a stray thought comes to mind. the words ‘who are you?’ scribbled in his sketchbook hit him out of nowhere, and sabo stands on the thin matress, gaze falling to the desk in the corner.

after a moment, he walks over, feet carrying him and hand reaching out for a small marker. he hesitates for a moment, then presses the ink to his skin, writing his name carefully.

-

sabo jerks awake, head fuzzy. shanks opens his door at the same time, and the blond has a conniption, about doing a front-somersault off the mattress. he lands on the ground in a heap, groaning.

“relax, kid,” shanks says. “it’s just me.”

sabo’s leg twitches. he lies there for a moment, only vaguely thinking about going back to sleep.

“ . . you okay?”

his phone starts ringing and sabo forces himself up to silence it. “fine,” he mutters, waving shanks off. with a shrug, the redhead leaves, closing the door behind him.

sabo’s gaze is fixed to his arm, now that he’s stopped waving it. his brow furrows, and he grasps his right with his left hand, bringing it closer. he squints.

there’s writing scribbled onto the skin. ‘sabo?’ it reads. ‘who are you? _ what _ are you?’

it was a dream.

  
  
  


right?

  
  
  


makino frowns at him as he enters the kitchen. “don’t cause trouble today,” she says quietly. sabo blinks, eyes widening and heart racing.

“what? what did i do?” he stammers. she only looks at him again, sighs quietly, and exits the room. down the hall, the front door closes.

“what did i do?” sabo asks koala, who frowns upon spotting him in the hall before class was due to start. 

“you got home too late, is my guess,” she muses. “makino called me, y’know. wondering where you were.”

sabo blanches. “did i have a shift?”

“ i think so?” she squints. “you headed off in a hurry. saw something, i guess. are you okay?”

he waves her off. “fine, fine.”

she looks at him for another moment before shoving the door open. “right.”

sabo goes straight home before his shift at the restaurant. on impulse, he flips to the back spread of his sketchbook, where the last note was. his eyes widen.

“i can’t believe i got to stop a real-life goa robbery attempt last night,” he reads. “sorry, i may have gotten scuffed up?” sabo takes a step back, and the sketchbook falls from his hands. it’s loud when it hits the floor. “what the fuck?” he breathes.

he pads over to the mirror, but there’s no marks on his face. without any airs, he strips of his shirt, twisting this way and that. _ ah _. there, on his left side, was a small patch of bruising. luckily for him, it was on his burns, where all the skin was nerve-dead. he couldn’t feel a thing.

suddenly feeling lightheaded, sabo falls to his knees. his right hand comes up to trace the bruising.

  
  
  


“oh, sabo!”

he turns on his heel, empty plates balanced in outstretched hands. robin walks over the last few steps. “yes?”

“thanks for the other night.” she nods. “and for making sure i got home safe. that was really nice of you.”

the pieces connect, rapid-fire, and he works hard to only nod back. “no problem,” he murmurs, then ducks quickly through the door to the back. so, robin was the one almost mugged. she must live pretty far, for him to take her and be back late enough to cause makino to worry. . . . that would also explain the weird looks he received from his other co-workers when he arrived. 

sabo sighs, taking a moment to pull his arms on top of his head, open his airway. then he’s poked in the back with a ladle, and his eyes open back up. moment over. he turns to see thatch eyeing him, a lazy grin on his face.

“what’s got you worked up?” he asks. before sabo can even think about not replying to his cheshire grin, zeff is yelling for him from across the kitchen. he moves quickly, picking up dessert trays and swinging out of the room once more.

he gets a text from shanks that has him calling as soon as he’s clocked out, pressing his phone between his shoulder and chin. it takes one ring for the redhead to pick up. “yes?”

“sabo! come straight home today, okay?”

“yeah, got it.” he sighs. “sorry . . about yesterday.”

“nah, don’t worry about it.” shanks pauses, and sabo can picture him physically waving the words off. “i know you didn’t mean harm. still, makino’s a little worried, so do her this favor.”

“got it. see you soon.”

sabo pockets his phone and pulls out his metro card in place of it, stepping fully into the train station. his head is spinning. 

it was a dream, right?

-

ace finds the diary, and it makes him sad before it gives him answers.

_ so i don’t forget again. _

he’s found three, similar, pressed into the back of a crammed bookshelf. all of them have the same title. he finds his fingertips pressing into the burn scar around his eye. was it to do with this? was it all part of the same thing?

the last entries of the diary confirm his worries. sabo wasn’t aware of what was going on. he was slowly realizing it, but slowly was bad for ace, who knew from the first event what was happening.

_ i’m not dead. we’re switching bodies. _

he was switching bodies with sabo triste, a boy his age living out in goa with his two guardians, makino and shanks. ace goes to sleep, and wakes up as sabo; he’d spent more time as the blond this week than he had himself.

‘stop writing in my sketchbook!!!’ is written right under his script on the same page, and ace traces the words carefully. he takes a pen and writes, right underneath, ‘surely one page is okay.’

he hesitates, then he writes, out to the side - ‘it’s not a dream.’

  
  
  
  
  


it can’t be a dream anymore.

-

sabo wakes with a start, finds himself on the floor, and groans. 

luffy opens the door, eyes already narrowed in annoyance, to find his brother lying in bed with the sheets tangled in his legs and his hands on his face, elbows over his head. sabo groans again, loudly, and luffy silently closes the door without a word, only shaking his head.

the night before, sabo had read ace’s newest note in his sketchbook, mourning the loss of the page and only slightly mystified by the declaration at the end.

and then he woke up in ace’s body again.

he wasn’t _ that _ dense. he could figure it out now.

he had twenty-four hours to spend as ace portgas.

sabo groans one more time before dropping his arms and sitting up, the sun finally rising enough over the crest of the crater to hit his eyes when he does so. he turns away and the alarm on ace’s phone goes off.

minutely, his eyes widen. he abandons the phone in favor of running down the hall. “luffy!” he calls, storming into the younger’s room. luffy looks mildly surprised, but overall unimpressed, by this act. “the ceremony,” sabo stumbles out.

“you mean the one tomorrow?”

sabo bobs his head, already retreating. “yes, that one. thanks.” he shuts the door back and hurries back to ace’s room.

then, after a moment contemplating this fact, he finds ace’s diary and scribbles his own note in the margin.

_ how did the ceremony go? _

-

ace hates this.

he’s dressed in traditional wear, garp had him rehearse the dance _ twice _ before night fell to ensure whatever he did yesterday was worked out of his system, and luffy is _ not helping _ by telling him how many people were stopping to gather around the short gazebo they’d be performing from.

a ceremony as old as the village. the reason was lost with the burning of the temple records, the fire so much a cursed accident that it was named after the man who started it. only the act, the _ how _, was carried through time.

ace grasps the coil of bells in one hand. _ tight. _

he tries not to think of lami and kidd, probably sitting out over the ridge, looking down, waiting for it all to start. supportive or no, he’d rather them not see this.

gramps sits off to the side. when the time is right, he presses a button on a remote, and from an ancient-looking cassette player holed up in the corner of the gazebo rafters, a low tune begins to play. ace glances over to luffy, kneeled down and holding his own bells, and then they began.

the dance is slow, the movements precise. the music of the bells drowns out what was playing from the cassette tape. ace matches luffy, and luffy him, though mostly him to luffy, covering the slack the nine-year-old left. he sees gramps sigh as he swings his head in that direction for a moment, following the patterns of the dance. before he can catch the old man’s eye, tell him to fuck off for berating a nine-year-old, he has to turn away again.

soon enough, the dance ends, he’s set aside the bells, and his least favorite part comes up.

him and luffy take a seat and unwrap portions of rice from brown paper. ace sighs, just a little, as he pinches a corner of the rice and lifts it to his mouth, beginning to chew slowly. he waits a minute, then adds another corner. then another.

then he sets aside the paper in favor of a wooden box, holds a sleeve to cover his mouth from the gathered crowd, and lets the drool drop down from his lips.

he repeats this until the paper is devoid of rice. the box is halfway full.

he doesn’t check to see how luffy was doing. instead, he lifts his eyes and looks out over the crowd. kidd and lami aren’t there, thank god, though he was sure they were still watching him from somewhere. who is there, though, are a few of his classmates, and they’re all snickering as they watch him.

ace jerks his gaze down sharply. he lets the last of the liquid drop into the box and closes his mouth, leaving his sleeve in place for a moment longer to hide his blush.

rice-wine, gramps called it. or, the oldest sake in the world. he closes the lid on the box and begins to tie a braided cord around it. next to him, luffy does the same, tying the cord ace had personally braided him the week before, against his protest of wanting to do it himself, despite not knowing how just yet. not like gramps would let him, anyway. if you chew on rice long enough, turn it into sludge, you can ferment it and turn it into sake.

kuchikomi-sake, in other words. 

  
  
  


ace sighs, kicking out his feet with every step, knocking stray rocks out of his path. from behind him, struggling to keep up, luffy groans in annoyance.

“get over yourself!” he whines. “so you were put on display. so some of your friends saw you. so what? it’s tradition. it’s one night a year!”

“_ not _ my friends,” ace growls, spinning on his heel. luffy stops, huffing, and tightens his grip on his robes packed into his arms. his friends wouldn’t laugh at him. more than that, they understood, they knew how much he-

“-hate this place,” luffy mumbles. ace blinks, snapping out of his thoughts.

“what?”

“you hate this place,” luffy repeats, grumbling. “i know that. it’s stuffy and small and there’s nothing here, and you’d sooner move away, but-” he breaks off, looks away. “i-” he swallows, blinks, tries again. “i don’t want you to be like dad. i don’t want you to go too.”

ace’s breath catches and his clothes fall to the ground and luffy jumps in surprise but then ace is knelt down and his arms come around his little brother, holding tight. 

“i’m not leaving you,” he murmurs. “i’m sorry you feel that way. i’m not leaving. i’m _ not _ going to be like dragon. i promise.”

luffy grips him tight, letting his clothes be held between them. he might have tears in his eyes, but he’ll never admit it. and ace will never ask.

they stay like that for a long time.

-

sabo pulls out his sketchbook and writes on the page of his own volition, for once.

_ if we’re going to keep doing this, we need to set some rules. _

he picks out his current log book and flips it open to a fresh page, lying it out beside the sketchbook. several days had already been skipped, blanks in his notes, and he couldn’t stand it anymore.

_ i need you to set my alarm before you go to sleep. at least a couple. it’s impossible for me to get up without them. _

_ you don’t have to get everything, but try and summarize the day in this book. date it, too. _

_ please don’t patronize koala. _

_ i’ll leave a work schedule on my desk for the week. follow it. _

he went on and on, filling the page and deciding not to leave another. should be enough. he draws an arrow in the sketchbook over to the notebook, asking ace to look at it.

  
  
  


he scribbles in the margins, before he can forget.

_ reference this book for what you need to know. i keep good notes. just read them from the previous day, and you’ll be set. _

-

“triste!”

a loud call of the surname is enough to have ace flinching back, and he glances over his shoulder as he’s finishing tying his apron strings, spying an older man speeding towards him.

he grabs ace by the shoulders. “i heard you almost fought with a customer last night.”

ace averts his eyes. “uh, i did, huh?” _ way to go, sabo. _ the man’s eyes narrow further. ace sighs. “sorry. won’t happen again.”

his shoulders get shaken. “don’t lie!” the man growls. “just tell me it was for a good cause, at least!”

“uh-”

“it was, zeff.”

ace blinks, and tips his head back to see robin approaching them, tying her hair up. zeff nods and releases ace, stepping back. 

“good. that’s all i wanted to hear.” he jabs a finger to ace’s chest. “don’t let it happen while i’m around.”

he moves away, back to the kitchen, and from behind him, robin snorts.

ace turns sharply on his heel. her arms are crossed. “what?”

“you really should be more careful,” she muses. 

ace wraps his own arms around around his form, nodding, growing sullen. _ not my fault _, he thinks. “i’ll try,” he says aloud.

  
  
  
  


“there’s a toothpick in my food!”

sabo deadpans. he blinks, looking from the toothpick indeed lodged between the crust and cheese of the pizza, then back to the man swirling wine in his glass, looking like he should be sitting on top of the world.

“we don’t serve toothpicks,” he says, matter-of-factly. the man’s smirk turns into a snarl.

“huh?!” he growls, voice raising. other patrons turn from nearby tables to look at them. sabo doesn’t back down.

“that’s not our toothpick. you-”

“are you insinuating i’m lying?” the man nearly yells. sabo opens his mouth again.

robin lays a hand across his chest, pushing him back. he begins to protest, but she turns her head quick, gives him a look with sharp eyes that has his mouth snapping shut.

“sorry,” she mutters to the men. “what seems to be the problem?”

sabo huffs, but lets himself be guided away by another waiter. 

“cool it,” he mutters, and sabo lets his shoulders slump. he’s pushed into the kitchen without a backwards glance, sure that robin could handle the problem. when he looks down, he sees the serving tray he’d had cradled to his chest has a crack in it.

“you can fight off the property,” zeff tells him, passing him by. 

“not a very good business prospect,” he retorts.

zeff only laughs. “not if its inside my restaurant. if they deserve it, though, who am i to care? kick his ass as he’s leaving.”

“you’re a terrible influence,” sabo mutters.

“thank robin instead of berating me. she’s saved you from another scuffle.”

  
  
  


he does. thank robin. she wacks him on the head, but it’s nothing he doesn’t deserve, so he only frowns and lets her do it. 

“i’m taking the next dish you break out of your paycheck,” she threatens, and sabo gulps, knowing she meant it.

-

ace wakes up to find ‘idiot!’ stamped across his forehead in black marker. he takes off his shirt and growls, finding more words all the way up his arms.

“alright, i get it,” he growls, scrubbing the ink off under the sink. “i’ll help with your stupid schoolwork!”

-

sabo wakes up to his laptop on his stomach. his fourth alarm had gone off, which meant he didn’t have enough time to deal with all the writing scribbled on his face, revealed by the blank screen in front of him.

he tumbles out of bed and to a proper mirror, glancing to the clock. “i don’t have time to read your fucking essay,” he mutters, snapping a picture instead and running off to scrub the ink from his face.

he deciphers the text on the train ride to school and rolls his eyes. “what do i care about the election,” he mumbles.

-

sabo closes his eyes, pencil paused on the easel, and listens.

“-same as always, right? only one person’s been mayor for as long as i can remember.”

“hey, shh! there are some kids that depend on that-”

“they’re talking about me, aren’t they?” sabo mutters, leaning to his other side, where lami sat. she froze up, but as he peels his eyes open, finds her reluctantly nodding. sabo sighs.

the muttering continues. 

well, he doesn’t have to put up with it.

so he reaches his leg out, presses it up against the empty desk sat beside him, and shoves it over. it topples with a crash that has the entire room’s attention focused on him. he crosses his arms. good.

“if you’re going to talk about me,” he says, glaring over at the girls. “then do it to my face.”

-

_ why am i getting confession letters from other guys? at least, i assume that’s what they are. kidd rips them up before i can read them. lami just stands back and watches. _

_ luffy got into another playground fight. i don’t think your gramps appreciated that i congratulated him. or, well, that you did. _

_ braided cords are so hard to make! i don’t understand how you do it so well. garp keeps yelling at me, but i feel like luffy can do a better job, at this point. _

_ you should really stick up for yourself more. _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ you work too much! seriously, it’s driving me insane. the only good thing about it is robin. why do i always feel like i’m being talked into shaking down customers? _

_ i really don’t understand these lessons, but i am trying my best here. _

_ makino is disappointed in you again. you really did it this time. _

_ koala says you’re not very strong, so why are you so quick to snap? you should take better care of yourself. _

-

ace wakes up as himself.

he blinks, eyeing the familiar ceiling, yet tossing his legs over the futon like he expected there to be a drop.

instead, his legs slam into the wood. his hisses in pain, curling them forward, and his eyes blow wide.

wait. but that wasn’t right. he’d already been himself for a day. they were supposed to switch. why didn’t it-

he slowly moves his legs back under the covers, slipping the blanket over his head. he was dreaming. he had to wake up properly, and then he would be sabo.

luffy comes in to yell about him oversleeping and ace bolts up again, just catching the door as it slammed shut. he blinks. still in his own body.

no, no. he settles back down again. that wasn’t right. something happened. he hadn’t gone to sleep. that’s what it was. he’d been dreaming, sure, but he wasn’t fully unconscious, so the switch hadn’t happened. that explained it. if he just went to sleep now, he’d wake up-

the door opens again and luffy is flinging the covers off, leaving ace shivering. “get up!” he yells.

ace tosses his hands in the air. “okay, okay! i’m up!”

  
  


he panics. not too bad, nothing noticeable. this had never happened before. think, think. was there something that could have triggered it? anything at all?

he makes it through school for the day before he realizes, and slaps a hand to his forehead, hard, when he comes to that conclusion. lami and kidd eye him funny, but he ignores them, muttering to himself.

“that’s it. the test. that must be it.”

lami and kidd exchange glances.

“what test?” she asks.

ace raises his head up. “oh, his-” he freezes, words halfway out his mouth. their shared expressions grow pinched. “nothing. nevermind,” he mutters. “i’m going home.”

  
  
  
  


he opens up his notebook at home, scribbling the date out. his eyes move up the page, where sabo had asked about a project due the other day. his own reply is still underneath, written neatly. he picks up the pen again, sighing. 

the blond _ had _ been working hard as of late. maybe ace could do something for him, for a change.

-

spring takes a bit to settle, this far north. it’s cold until it’s hot, and summer slams into the valley full-force.

sabo forgoes the uniform jacket for the simple short-sleeve shirt. he brushes out his hair, searches for the band, and works the hair up into a high knot before seeking out the diary.

_ it was fine. _ ace wrote. below that, he has yesterday’s date printed. it’s slashed over in a hurry, and a new date is printed below that, in shaky script. 

sabo knows what that’s from.

he’d had a test the previous day, so he’d stayed up all night to study for it. they couldn’t switch bodies if they didn’t fall asleep. sabo had remained as himself for two days in a row, and ace had recalculated at the end of the day, when he realized the switch wouldn’t be happening.

sabo takes the pen resting inside the notebook and taps it against the paper, thinking. finally, he sets it down face-up with a sigh, and opts to venture downstairs.

he stops in the doorway to the main room, looking out the open shoji doors to the landscape below. luffy pauses in working through his rice bowl, eyeing sabo with an odd look. “what’s with the uniform?” he asks, and sabo nearly drops his shoes.

right. the weekend. “testing you,” he says, the words a bit awkward. “you passed. i’ll be back.”

he retreats quickly, and behind him, luffy and garp share a look.

it’s hot outside. he ditches the stuffy button-up for a loose tank, shorts for the pants, high-tops in place of school shoes. he grabs a thin jacket on his way out and throws it around his shoulders, because if they went any higher upground than they currently were, the wind would catch them.

an hour later, he’s glad he did so, hiking up a mountain further from the crater-village than he would’ve thought. luffy is behind him, hands on the straps to his backpack, and he doesn’t miss an opportunity to jump over a stray branch or pebble or whatever ends up in their path. behind them both, garp ambles along, slow but insistent that he walk by himself, without aid from his grandsons. sabo keeps glancing back, but he doesn’t have the courage just yet to toss the old man over his shoulder and continue their hike.

“why is our god’s shrine way out here?” luffy asks, turning around to face their grandfather as he speaks. he continues walking, and sabo turns his head to keep an eye out, make sure he doesn’t trip.

“well, i don’t quite have that answer. it was lost in the same fire that destroyed all the records,” garp grunts. 

“fire?” sabo murmurs. luffy spins back around and they share a look, like he’s supposed to know something, but he doesn’t, because he’s not really ace.

they cross a short river, just little enough to step over -sabo helps luffy across, though, not trusting the boy to miss the landing- and then the golden hues of the leaves around them change. the trees morph into tall, tall conifers, blocking out most of the sun’s light and casting a myriad of shadows on the forest floor. soon, sabo begins to see shimenawa wrapped around the tree’s trunks. it’s so out of place here, he’s only ever seen it at select temples in goa. but, if this really was a holy place they were approaching, he could see why. they were getting close.

“ace, luffy. have you heard of musubi?” garp asks.

“misubi?” luffy questions. sabo shakes his head.

“musubi,” is garp’s correction. “in the olden language of our village, it’s the name of our guardian deity.”

sabo blinks, trying to recall if he’s ever heard the name before. he doesn’t think so -not as ace, and not back in goa, either. “what does it mean?”

“joining thread. joining people, too. even the passage of time. just look at the braided cords we make.” garp gestures to ace’s hair, and sabo raises a hand to it out of instinct, touching the band with his fingerpads. no, that wasn’t right. the cord. a braided cord.

“those are musubi’s art. they represent the flow of time, too. twisting, tangling, coming undone, breaking off, reuniting, retaining shape and form and _ meaning _. that’s musubi.”

sabo knows he’s come to a stop when garp overtakes him, turning to look back with a wink, and only then does sabo begin to move again.

“that’s _ time _.”

  
  
  


they’re stopped on an overhang, a patch of rock just smooth enough for sitting around, when garp brings it up again.

he’s uncapped the thermos from luffy’s backpack and pours a good amount of tea into the lid, passing it to sabo. he takes a sip, hums at the taste, and then luffy starts bouncing his leg.

“i want some, too!”

“sure,” sabo murmurs, passing it along.

“that’s another musubi,” garp says across from them. sabo looks up with interest, and he continues speaking with a sparkle in his eyes.

“water, tea, sake. whatever you put into your body binds to your soul. musubi is all about binding.” he gestures to the backpack. “which is why our offering today is so important. it’s binding our god to our _ people _.”

  
  
  


there’s a dip at the top of the mountain. luffy breaks into a run, reaches the crest before the other two, and turns to assure them they had made it.

when sabo steps up to look for himself, his breath catches in his throat.

there was a small valley, a plateau sloped down from the crater made of rocks. once you cleared the sides, greenery covered the plateau. water set out everywhere. in wide pools, in streams, in thick puddles. and, at the center, it formed a looping circle, _ like thread _, sabo thinks, and surrounds a lone, squatty tree. he can see something similar to cement set up near the base. the entrance to the shrine, probably.

tears pool at the edges of his eyes. he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

at garp’s protest, luffy stays close to them instead of bounding ahead. him and sabo both help garp down the sides of the crater, and then they all steadily make their way to the center, coming to a stop at the edge of the river-circle.

“this is the edge of the other side,” garp tells them. he only smiles at their curious looks, then gestures across the stream. “the next world.”

luffy’s eyes brighten and, gripping his backpack tight, he quickly moves across the stream, using the rocks set into the flowing water to avoid getting wet.

sabo looks back at garp and then down at his shoes and thinks, well, ace will forgive him.

he steps down into the water, cold but not too much, barely reaching his ankles. he helps garp onto the first stone, only a grunt in thanks coming from the old geezer. he walks him across, then helps him onto the next stone.

“in order to return to our world, you two must leave behind what’s most important to you,” garp says, nodding to sabo once they were both safe across.

sabo touches the cord in his hair. garp minutely shakes his head.

“the kuchikame-sake.”

“the stuff from the ceremony?” luffy pipes up. garp nods. sabo is no longer paying attention.

it wasn’t cement.

instead, set up from the ground, is a huge slab of limestone. the tip of it juts out sharply, moving into the trunk of a massive tree, leaves fanned out to cover past the stone on one side, and near touch the grass on the other, bent so far over. on the edge of the stone, he sees a crack, an opening. a collection of rocks on one corner balance the stone, leaving the opening free to explore.

“yes.” garp sets a heavy hand on sabo’s shoulder, pulling him forward. as they get closer, sabo can see the gap is far wider than he imagined, and big enough to walk under, crouching only becoming necessary the further they went down. “you’re offering it to the god’s body. the sake is half of you, after all.”

sabo remembers. though he hadn’t performed the ceremonial action, he had gotten lectured on what to do. to ingest rice, to spit it back out, to let it ferment. 

anything that went past your lips binded to your soul. became musubi.

sabo understands.

as garp hands him a wooden bottle, bound with a red cord, garp’s words come back to him. half of ace. half of his soul, here in sabo’s hands.

“there’s not actually a body down here, right?” luffy asks.

garp’s laugh is quiet, for once. “no. it’s a shrine, luffy. setting the bottles at the shrine will be enough.”

“how come it’s only us?” luffy turns back to look at garp and sabo steps forward quickly, worried about the boy tripping down the stone steps. “how come you don’t have to do the same?”

_ he already has, _ sabo thinks. if it was tradition. if it was their family, upholding this tradition.

“once is enough,” garp tells luffy, confirming sabo’s suspicions. luffy’s mouth opens as he begins to catch on.

  
  
  
  


the sun is setting as they venture down from the mountains.

“it’s half-light already,” luffy hums, eyes open in wonder as they both turn to admire the lake from above. 

“half-light,” sabo hums, recalling what ace’s teacher had said that one time. he doesn’t think it’s quite time yet, but he’s too busy to correct luffy.

ace’s diary is opened in his hands. he’s been writing in it, detailing what he’d done that day in ace’s body, like they’d agreed to do. _ came down from mt. corvo at half-light _ , he notes, then scribbles a word out. _ near _ half light, the correction reads.

“think we can see the comet?” luffy asks, spinning on his heel to face sabo.

sabo lifts his head, confusion marring his gaze. “comet?”

“oh?”

garp’s voice comes from right beside him. sabo pauses in his writing, glances over to find garp watching him.

“ace, you’re dreaming right now, aren’t you?”

-

sabo wakes with a start, tears in his eyes.

he sets up in bed, touches his wet face. 

he touches the bandage on his cheek instead, and winces at the contact.

in the corner, his phone goes off. he stumbles up to check on it, shivering as his feet hit the cold flooring.

he has a text from robin. _ almost there, _ it reads. his eyes furrow. almost . . almost where?

“what did you do this time,” he mumbles under his breath, tossing the phone on his bed in favor of slipping a worn notebook from his desk. he flips it to the last entry.

_ whatever you did to your face, it hurts. _

_ robin says you’re reckless, so i guess i didn’t act out of character. _

_ she saved my ass. _

_ i might’ve almost gotten into a scuffle at work. _

_ don’t worry, i didn’t. _

_ your pretty face still only has one bruise. _

_ you should be more careful, by the way. _

_ also, i scored you a date. _

_ shinjuku station, 10am. _

_ i was hoping for another double event, if i’m being honest. _

_ but if you get to go, you better treat robin right!! _

_ if nothing else, she’s a great friend. _

_ you’re welcome. _

he’s bounding down the hall before he can process most of the notes, working on a casual blazer over a tee, tripping over his untied boots. from the kitchen, makino calls out to him, watching as he stumbles past. sabo runs into the door, fixes his shoes, and opens it in a hurry.

“gotta go! i’ll be out all day!” he calls back. the door’s shut before she can reply.

the station is crowded, and he has no idea which section he’s supposed to meet robin at. he eventually just texts her, asking where she was, and she replies promptly with her location. it’s not tough to find her, after that.

she looks pretty, all dressed up in casual clothes.

  
  
  


sabo’s never been on a date before.

  
  
  


sabo’s never been on a date with a _ girl _ before either. he knows for a fact ace hasn’t, either, flashing back to an event that occurred a few weeks prior.

_ “she’s kinda pretty,” sabo mumbles, passing by a group of girls on the road. from his other side, lami nudges him in the side. _

_ “girls don’t like hearing that unless you mean it,” she huffs. “just stick to hitting on kidd.” _

_ sabo raises a brow. “i thought it was the other way around?” _

_ lami stops, pausing mid-walk. she recovers after a moment, laughing, and shoves him away. sabo over-balances, and he nearly loses his footing. she laughs on. “maybe you’re not as dense as i thought,” she howls, and sabo’s face colors. _

nah, pretty sure he still is,_ he thinks. then, without thinking, he adds, “i think he would still settle for you, though.” _

_ lami winces, laugh cutting off. “wow, harsh.” _

_ sabo shrugs. “just my way of saying it’s never going to happen.” _

_ “thanks, i guess?” lami mumbles. “you’re right, though. his dad would flip if he started dating a guy. now i see why you wanna move away so bad.” _

_ sabo didn’t think that had been one of the reasons, but as he starts thinking, he realizes she may be on to something. an empty town in the middle of nowhere, a dad who ran out to play politics, a family who enforces traditions, nothing to do, nothing to see once you get over the lake- _

_ and. suppression? _

_ maybe not for ace. maybe the goa appeal was more about anonymity. not being important, being free to be who he really was. _

_ or maybe he was reading too much into it. he hadn’t had the luxury before shanks and makino, after all, always being told he couldn’t like girls _ and boys _ \- _

sabo’s never been on a date, but he knows robin is nice, and pretty, and ace likes being around her. sabo does, too, so he decides to make the most of it.

they go a bunch of different places, having the whole day, after all. an observation tower, an upscale diner, even a cat cafe, after some careful prodding and recalling koala mentioning it one day. sabo thinks it goes okay, but he knows their conversation was awkward. he was not a smooth talker by far, and it showed as the day progressed. sabo could talk his way _ out _ of any situation -and when he chose not to, well, there was a bandage on his cheek for a reason- but chatting up someone about everyday stuff was not his strong suit.

they take lots of pictures, and sabo humors them just for ace to be able to see later. his camera roll had never been so full before they started switching bodies, and he certainly didn’t pick up the habit, but he could deal with it. 

they end at an art museum. it’s small, but everything is well-placed. robin signs the registry for them both, and sabo stands quietly in the background, looking at the paintings hanging in the foyer.

robin stays quiet this time, wandering from piece to piece, picture to picture. sabo trails after her. it’s not until they reach a wall of photographs that he pauses, eyes catching onto a piece in the center.

it was the lake. the crater-lake where ace’s mountain village was.

he stares at it a bit too long. robin wanders back.

“you’re . . a bit different today,” she notes. sabo tries not to let it bother him.

  
  
  
  
  


they’re passing a footbridge when sabo speaks next. “are you hungry again? we can go and grab dinner.”

robin pauses in her walk, turning back to gaze at him. it’s the first time sabo notices that the sun is setting, just behind her head. 

“nah,” she says. “let’s be done for the day.”

sabo tries not to visibly deflate. “oh. okay.”

robin smiles and moves a little closer. “hey . .” she waits until sabo looks up. “you . . used to have a little crush on me, didn’t you?”

“eh?” sabo’s face colors.

“but now you don’t.” her smile turns softer. “now . . you’re in love with someone else, right?”

“what?” sabo blinks. 

_ your pretty face still only has one bruise. _

his mouth opens. nothing comes out.

across from him, robin laughs, covering it with one hand. sabo copies her, but he’s not laughing, just covering his own quickly-reddening face.

“n-no!” his shoulders move up to his ears. 

“hmm?” she moves closer. “you sure?”

“positive!”

“well, okay.” she pats him on the shoulder. “bye, sabo. thanks for today.”

  
  
  
  


the sky is more dark than light, now, and sabo’s still on the bridge. 

way, far ahead of him, the last of the sun’s rays hit the goa skyline. twilight, for sure. 

he has his phone out. there’s a last bit of the notes ace wrote for him that he didn’t read, in his rush to leave. lucky for him, ace always took a picture when he finished writing.

_ by the time your date is over, you’ll be able to see the comet. _

sabo frowns, looks up at the sky. the only thing he sees is a passing airplane.

his gaze moves back to his phone, but it catches on the hand holding it, at the red cord wrapped several times around his wrist. he stares. and stares.

wait.

wasn’t that-

a noise catches his attention, and he throws his head up just to spy another airplane, this one lower, just having taken off.

he sighs, closes out of the photos to open his number directory. _ comet? what is he talking about? _

they’d given each other their numbers a while back, but never used them, always opting for the notes instead.

sabo’s finger clicks on ace’s, bringing up his contact.

_ ace portgas _.

he stares. and stares.

then he clicks ‘call’, and holds the phone up to his ear.

“when did you give me . .” he mumbles, almost whispers. his phone rings. and rings.

-

ace’s phone buzzes from across the room. 

he opens his eyes, awoken from his catnap against the window seat. looking out, he can see the sun beginning to set, disappearing behind the crater’s crest.

slowly, he moves to stand.

“hello?”

_ “ace? why weren’t you at school today?” _

“oh, kidd?” he blinks. had he been expecting different? “i just didn’t feel like going,” he lies. “sorry.”

“_ what about the festival?” _

he hums. “that’s tonight, huh?” right. the comet. it would reach its closest point that night, be the brightest. it had been such a long day already, he’d forgotten.

_ “lami and i are meeting at nine.” _

“okay.” he turns to the mirror, pushes a hand up into his hair, into the dark strands setting just below his shoulder. “ . . i’ll be there.”

  
  


“admit it. you just wanna see ace in a yukata.”

kidd flinches back before glaring sharply at lami, who’s laughing at him now, legs swinging from the bench they were set on.

“just because it’s a festival-”

“oh, come now, luffy won’t let him leave the house without one. their grandpa would _ make _ lu wear one, and he’ll whine to ace until he’s matching, until they’re both suffering the same.” her smile turns a little whimsical as her gaze falls, staring at her own yukata sleeve. “though, i don’t see why. they’re really comfy.” she looks over at kidd again, a glimmer in her eyes. “y’know, i did offer you one of law’s old ones. instead you chose to show up in oil-stained shorts, an old hoodie.”

kidd huffs. “so what?”

she shrugs. “nothing.”

kidd crosses his arms, leans back. “still. he didn’t sound so good.”

“it’s ace. he gets worked up sometimes. if he said he’d come, he’s probably better than you think-”

“hey.”

they both turn. 

“ace!" lami’s smile quickly turns into a frown. her eyes widen. “w-wha-”

kidd falls off the bench.

ace blinks, first at her, and then at the redhead now sprawled across the dirt. he rubs a hand on the back on his neck, the short strands there tickling his palm. “is it that different?”

  
  
  
  


kidd is frowning. lami wants to ask, but they’re not that far behind ace, so she grabs his arm and lets them fall a few more paces back, ace walking further ahead, blissfully unaware. “what is it?” she hisses.

“think he got his heart broke?” kidd mutters. “think there’s some other guy?”

“why? because he cut his hair?” lami scoffs. “can’t people just cut their hair? it doesn’t have to be all about break-ups.”

“sure, but why so short? i can see his ears now, and it’s not even up!”

“get over yourself! just because you don’t like it-”

“hey, who says i don’t-”

“oh!”

ace’s voice breaks them out of their argument. they turn to see him breaking out into a jog, dipping off the road, and onto the grass proper. “you can see it,” he calls back, and lami and kidd forego their arguing to catch up.

  
  
  


ace stands on the edge of the ridge, looking out across the lake, and up into the sky.

it’s now after half-light, and above them, the comet is flying.

his breath catches as his eyes lock onto the trail it leaves behind, colors shining like the northern lights he’d always heart so much about. just another place to go, another thing to see, when he finally left this place.

the comet had been a tease since the start of the year. news anchors loved to talk about how it was coming, something that only passed every 1200 years. astronomers set a date for midsummer, for about four days you could view the comet. the time grew closer and closer. even as he switched with sabo, the next morning, news about the comet would always be playing on the old television at he ate breakfast.

_ sabo . . _

_ i wonder if he can see it. _

on the third day, today, tonight, right now, the comet moved to its closest point to the earth’s surface, and became the most visible than any of the other three days.

ace’s eyes move from the trail to the white speck itself. he hears lami and kidd come up behind him.

he watches as the comet moves, and then blinks, gaze caught on a new streak separating from it, dipping off, going red from white, and red, and redder, and lower and lower and lower-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ oh. _

-

_ “the number you have reached is no longer in service. please hang up and try-” _

sabo sighs and ends the call. must’ve typed it in wrong. whatever, he’d ask for it again next time they switched. he pockets his phone, finally moving off the bridge. his fingers move to wrap around the cord.

“how’d it go?” shanks asks as soon as he’s through the door. sabo only sighs, faking his forlornness to exaggerating lengths to hide the real stuff lingering underneath. shanks lets out a breathy laugh, and then he’s slinking off to his and makino’s bedroom, holding a finger to his lips before he slips in and shuts the door.

sabo catches the hint, and takes off his boots before moving across the apartment.

at the end of the night, before he can properly settle in bed, he reaches for his marker and scribbles down his arm.

_ when did you give me this? _

  
  
  
  
  


he wakes up, and the note is still on his arm. 

the next night he frowns, re-writes it.

the next night, before he can re-write it, he forgets what he was going to write in the first place.

the next night, he starts drawing.

-

sabo draws ace’s village, so he won’t forget, just like he forgot the writing on his arm, just like he forgot everything that happened before he got the burns, before shanks and makino. he draws for the same reason he’s been writing those notebooks.

he draws the view from the dining room, when the shoji doors were open, and the tatami a little damp from the weather. he draws the lake, and the houses nestled into the cliffside. he draws the front of kidd’s mother’s diner. he draws the high school, sitting alone at the top of the crest. he draws the broadcast club room, where he’d come to pick up lami after school had ended. he draws the big torii gates on the edge of the village. he draws the radio towers clustered together on the far side of the lake.

he draws the shrine, the streams and puddles and the tipped tree and the giant stone slab. he draws the scenery of the plateau atop mount corvo over and over and over.

he draws until he runs out of pages, until the sketchbook is empty, all the drawings torn out and hung on the wall, the last remaining page all the notes he and ace scribbled all those months ago.

he uses money he’d earned from his job to buy a new one, because without ace spending it all on food after school, he actually has some spare.

time passes. life goes on. he spends time with koala, goes to work, eats breakfast with makino, gets teased by shanks. he keeps drawing, filling his entire wall with sketches pinned there by a strip of clear tape. 

he glances down at the red band tied to his wrist, and can’t help but think, well.

that he’s _ missing _ something.

-

summer fades. the weekend comes. sabo takes all the drawings off his wall, and pulls out a trash can.

he stuffs the tape into it, then shoves the paper into the sketchbook, and slides that into his backpack.

he hikes on a jacket, because it was still rainy season, and he didn’t fancy getting wet. 

he wraps the red band around his wrist, ties it there with a clasp. it’s routine at this point. methodical. 

a glance at his phone confirms koala’s last message, a thumbs-up symbol, for the millionth time. sabo moves out of the thread to a different one, to a long list of failed-to-send messages.

he knows, if he looks at his call log, it will read the same. ace portgas, over and over and over again.

he opens up a new app, his list for settlements surrounding the corvo mountains. it was a wide mountain range, so he had his work cut out for him.

_ he’s worth it _, he thinks, and then slams a lid over that thought quickly. he shoves his phone into his jacket, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and leaves the apartment before makino wakes up for the day.

at the station, koala and robin are waiting for him.

sabo blanches. he turns to robin first. “w-what are you doing here?”

“koala told me,” she hums, smiling down at him, curse her height. 

he turns to glare at the redhead next. “traitor.”

koala hands him a ticket. “say it on the train,” she drones, pushing him towards the platform.

“i told you to cover my shifts and make up a lie to makino,” he hisses, once they’re all properly seated. koala rolls her eyes.

“you have a week off. i’m not lying to makino. i told her we were taking a trip.” she shoves a finger into his chest. “and i’m not letting you go alone. you’ve never met this guy before, what if he’s some old man?”

sabo sputters. “he’s not-”

“plus, you’ve been acting weird.” she crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back and from her other side, robin leans over.

“it’s someone you met online, right?”

“no!” he says, maybe a touch too loud.

“i think he’s been using a dating site,” koala whispers to her. robin laughs.

“no!” he says again, definitely too loud this time. he ducks in his seat, shoulders hunching, as people turn to stare.

it’s not until they’re switching train cars at another station does robin finally ask the big question. “so. where are we going?”

“uh.” sabo gulps. “i don’t exactly know.”

robin stares.

sabo moves his gaze away. “i just know what the town looks like. and that it’s somewhere near the corvo mountain range.”

the silence remains. settles. the train begins to move.

“you’re a terrible trip planner,” koala finally says, snorting.

sabo huffs. “you didn’t have to come!”

“yeah, i did,” she continues, bumping shoulders with him. “that’s what friends are for.” she gestures to robin. “and we’re your friends. we’ll help you find him.”

  
  
  


they leave goa nearing six in the morning.

it’s almost been eight hours since then.

they’ve rode the train for hours. sabo shows his drawing, the one of the lake and the village, to everyone. train conductors, station workers, taxi drivers, inn keepers, the people who served them breakfast, the couple who offered them lunch, the town mascot. the list went on and on.

sabo spies a torii gate and forces them off at the next stop. his heart falters as he sees the scenery is wrong, gate on top of a slope, and stone steps leading up to it. he stops a pair of older women before they can make their way up, but they don’t know what to make of his drawing, either.

sabo shows his drawing to passing farmers, shopkeepers, other locals, other tourists, delivery men, young kids, old people. he points to a distant mountain, comparing it to the one in his sketch, but gets waved off each time. _ not here _ , they say. _ and not anywhere i know. sorry. _

he shows it to the bus driver who takes them out of town, but when that, too, comes up empty, he has the old man stop on the edge, and all three of them collapse onto the tiny waiting bench.

“this isn’t going to work,” sabo sighs, his head falling into his hands.

“what?” koala gasps. from his other side, robin looks affronted. “but we’ve spent so much effort!” _ and money _, she doesn’t add, but there’s no need.

“_ we? _” sabo side-eyes her. “i’ve been doing all the work!”

koala had taken sabo’s wallet hostage, and treated herself and robin to a local delicacy at every stop, not to mention small knick-knacks. they’d played cards as sabo conversed with locals, stopped to admire the small stations and all they had to offer, took tons and tons of pictures while sabo obsessed over the list on his phone, hope fading with every crossed-out line being added.

-

“a ramen.”

“a ramen!”

“uh, a ramen, then.”

their server, an older woman who ran the shop with her husband, hums and takes their menus. “it’ll be right out.”

sabo sighs for the zillionth time that day and resists plunging his face into his water glass. he tosses a straw into it instead, swirls it around.

“maybe i should just give up. could we make it back to goa by tonight?”

robin turns to look out the window. “could be close. let me check.” she pulls out her phone.

koala leans forward in her seat. “but, sabo! is that really okay?”

there’s a faint glimmer in her eyes he doesn’t want to acknowledge. he sighs again, instead, and leans back in his seat.

their ramen comes. they dig in, each surprised and impressed by the flavor. sabo considers koala’s words and sets down his bowl halfway through. he plucks the drawing out from the sketchbook, set in the chair beside his own. “this isn’t going well,” he mutters. “does it matter if it’s okay? what choice do i have?”

“oh. that’s fuusha, ain’t it?”

sabo blinks, then looks up. the woman is back, refilling their water glasses. her eyes are on the drawing in sabo’s hands.

“drawin’ you’ve got there looks just like it. hey, hon, come look at this!” she calls. from behind the counter, the chef pauses in his work, then slowly ambles out.

“yeah. that’s fuusha,” he notes.

“he’s from there, y’see,” the woman tells sabo.

“brings back memories,” he hums.

sabo feels his breath catch. “fuu . . sha.”

the hope returns, a small flicker growing into a large flame.

-

“yeah! fuusha, that’s it! do you know where it is?”

he’s nearly out of his seat. his heart is racing, suddenly his head feels a lot lighter as the adrenaline kicks it. fuusha. fuusha village. he’s found it. after everything that day -no, the week they’d stopped switching-

the months since they started.

he’d finally found it. _ him. _ ace.

something shifts on the chef’s face. him and his wife share a glance. “where . . ?” she asks. “but . .”

sabo blinks. he feels like he’s stuck in a loop. the adrenaline kicks into high gear. his hand squeezes down on the wooden tabletop. across from him, koala and robin exchange looks.

“fuusha,” koala murmurs. “isn’t that . . ?”

robin’s eyes widen. “yeah. that’s where the comet-” she cuts herself off, face closing off.

sabo catches it, though. he turns his head sharply, from the shop owners to his friends. “comet?” he mutters, recalling the mention of such from ace’s note, a week back.

when robin looks back up to him, it’s with very sad eyes.

his heart plummets.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


sabo’s already running. it’s short work to jump over the yellow caution tape warding strangers off from the area.

he jogs to the edge of the crater. to his left, the high school sat, still intact, still giving the illusion that everything was okay.

below him, where fuusha should have sat, there was a second lake.

his heart catches.

rubble coated the side of the crater. everything below the ridge he stood on was decimated, destroyed. 

there was a second lake, almost as big as the first. it formed where the walls of the crater once began, right near the bottom, where sacha’s restaurant and kidd’s home had once been. it stretched near where the top of the crater was, where sabo now stood. the wreckage collected on the sides. in the middle, there was nothing but rock and earth and water.

his breathing stops.

he lets his arms fall limp to his sides.

behind him, robin and koala come to a stop a safe distance away. koala gulps as she catches sight of the damage.

“hey . . this can’t be it. there’s gotta be a mistake, right, sabo?” she asks, her voice raising. “this can’t be the place, right? you’re mista-”

“i’m not!” sabo shouts, spinning on his heel. his eyes are burning. “this is it! this is _ fuusha _ . but . .” he shakes his head. “i . . no.” he gulps. “i was here. i was just here. i’ve been in the high school-” he gestures vaguely at the building. “more times than i can count this semester. i’ve been here. i was _ here _. how is it . .” he shakes his head. “how can it be . . . ?”

he stands there for a long time. tears dot the ground at his feet. he keeps his head hung low, so he doesn’t have to see the sun finally setting behind him, drawing this impossibly long day to a close. from further back, behind the girls, the ramen chef leans against his car, having taken the time to drive them all down there.

“you can’t have,” robin says, speaking up softly. “the disaster happened three years ago. no one has touched fuusha since.” she swallows, looks pained. “lots of people died, sabo.”

his breath catches, again. he remembers, very faintly. seeing the comet. seeing the split.

his hand reaches for his jacket pocket. he slides out his phone, and his hands begin to tremble. “no,” he mumbles. “no, that’s not right. i-i still have the notes he wrote for me. all the pictures he took-”

he cuts himself off, staring at his camera roll.

a bunch of blank image slots greet him.

he clicks on one, almost frantic, and is greeted with a simple message. “image corrupted?” he murmurs. “that can’t-” 

it’s like that for all of them. his whole camera roll, all the way up from when they first started switching. 

his phone dies, right there in his hands. he hadn’t charged it all day.

sabo lets out one choked, forced sob.

he collapses before he can let out another.

-

the miran comet had an orbital period of around 1200 years.

three years ago, astronomers predicted its path near earth, down to the day, the hour, where it would be a stone’s throw from the atmosphere. three years ago, as summer finally dawned, it was all the news stations could talk about. the comet was coming. the comet would be visible. what weather to expect, what it would look like through a telescope versus through the naked eye, what deterioration it had taken in space from the last time it had flown by the planet.

what no one had predicted, though, was for the comet’s nucleus to split. three years ago, the stuff that made the comet a comet, the snowball part that was lit on fire, for a simple enough explanation, broke. plummeted to earth, as the rest continued its course. caught on fire. fell. crashed.

“right into fuusha,” koala finishes, pointing to a spot on a map from one of the many books they had lying open on the table. sabo sat in a chair in front of them all, head resting on his hands. he’d hadn’t -more like _ refused _ to- believed it, so after they had gotten a ride back into town, robin drug him to a library, where they dug up articles and such about fuusha from three years back.

it was starting to process, by now. he was starting to remember. seeing the comet split, watching from the rooftop.

“a third of the town died,” robin murmurs, coming up to them with a new book. “nearly five hundred people.”

she sets it down and sabo’s eyes widen at the title. it was a list of victims. a thick, black-binded tome. he doesn’t waste time in flipping it open, in scanning the names.

it doesn’t take long before his finger stops moving down the page. “kidd,” he mutters, voice hoarse. 

and another time, on a different page. _ lami _, he thinks, attempting the words vocally with no success, lips moving along silently. 

and then, on a separate page, the name he didn’t want to find. the one that makes him gasp, breathy and quiet, as his finger slides to rest over the number, over the ‘17’ marking the age he died at.

_ portgas ace. _

koala leans closer. “that’s him? ace?” her lips purse. “then, that can’t be the same person. i mean, he died three years ago, sabo! it’s right there . .” she trails off, eyes widening as sabo begins to shake his head.

“no,” he whispers. “a week ago, he told me i could see the comet. he . . he-”

_ ace? _

old man garp’s words echo back to him.

_ you’re dreaming now, aren’t ya? _

“he . . what . . .” sabo blinks, looks up from the names.

  
  
  
  


but.

it wasn’t supposed to be a-

-

koala finds robin in the common room of the small inn they’d picked to stay for the night. it was far too late to catch a train back to goa, not with all the stops and transitions they’d have to make. unfortunately, the inn they had found had only had one room available. robin had insisted it was fine, but koala was closer to sabo, the two had been around the other for years, and she didn’t exactly know how well the raven was really taking it. sharing a room with two teenagers.

koala watches for a moment as robin’s eyes move around the room, watching, scanning. she pulls out a book before too long, and before she could get into it, koala marches over. robin looks up expectantly once koala’s shadow falls over the pages.

her lips pull tight. “sorry we couldn’t get another room,” she mutters, shuffling over to rest in the seat next to robin, who only smiles, marks her page.

“i’ll manage. how’s he doing?”

“ah . .” she glances away. “well. still reading. he did take a lot from the library, but . .” she shrugs. “he brought his laptop, i guess. he’s reading internet articles now. anything he can find about fuusha.” her eyes move back to robin, questioning, watching. “what do you think of his story?”

“hm.” robin blinks, closes her book. “i’d sooner believe in reincarnation,” she answers bluntly. 

koala almost laughs. how . . very robin-like. 

“if you had told me, say, sabo got into an accident three years back. and ace’s soul was reincarnated into him, instead of his own. that would make more sense.” she shrugs again, as koala’s expression shifts. “still certainly . . not exactly sane. but more believable than-”

“that?” her brows raise. “yeah. i know what you mean.”

robin frowns. “or if it was from the same time-”

“but it’s not.” koala sighs. “not if it was recent, for sabo.”

“i don’t think i can believe it,” robin answers after a long, silent moment. koala nods, slowly.

-

“i do think,” she continues, and koala perks up, thinking that the conversation had been over. “that he had been acting differently, lately. almost like he could’ve been an entirely new person. i would like to believe it.” robin’s lips purse. her eyes go carefully blank. “maybe i could have, if ace was still alive.”

“but . .” koala murmurs.

“regardless, i do think he’s met someone.” robin smiles over at her, and koala only blinks. “someone who _ has _ changed him.”

“that, i can believe, at least.”

-

sabo brings up his camera roll again.

now, not even the notices of corrupted images are left. there’s not even blank space. his camera roll just picked up where he left it, middle of freshman year, some random things he thought looked cool, back before he could draw to preserve things for his memory.

he can’t even have the reassurance that the notes are still intact, in his notebooks. how many did he have, by now? nine? eleven? which one had ace been writing in again?

. . if he had been at all?

he can’t even go home and check, either. trains weren’t running. it’d cost a fortune he didn’t have to get someone to drive him there. he would be walking for _ days _ if he set out on foot.

he turns his phone back off. puts his head in his arms, right over the folded articles spread out on the table. from the corner of his eye, his computer screen finally winks off to sleep.

there had to be a reason. there had to be.

option one. he saw the news three years ago. he remembered the scenery from then. that’s what he had been sketching, all this time. you see enough before and after photos, you can draw some old buildings, right?

option two. he really . . was dreaming. imagining. he runs a hand through his hair, face still pressed down onto his other arm. the switch only occurred in his dreams, right? or, was he schizophrenic, now? imagining people, forgetting days of his life.

option three. 

the door opens.

sabo sits up, rubbing at his face. “koala?”

“sorry, she’s in the bath.”

he looks over his shoulder. “oh. robin.”

“hey.” she moves closer. spies all the papers. her expression grows a bit pensive. she manages to even it out, slides into the chair across from him. “hand me a mag, okay?”

  
  
  
  
  


“sorry,” he mutters, staring blankly down at the same page and not comprehending a word. robin looks up, but sabo doesn’t. “for dragging you into this. for . . saying all this crazy stuff.”

robin watches him carefully before replying. “regardless, i did have fun today.”

sabo lets out a laugh. its short. “glad someone did.”

she flips a page, hums. “this one’s interesting,” she notes. “braided cords? tradition, apparently.”

sabo looks up.

robin does as well, glancing to his wrist. “that’s one, right? a braided cord.”

sabo blinks. looks down to the red wrapped around him. “i . . yeah,” he mutters. “yeah.” his brows furrow. “someone gave it to me. i can’t remember. i . . . when, who-” _ you know, though, _ his mind echoes, and he mentally nods. he knew who it belonged to. but. how long had he had it? when did he get it? when did he stop paying it mind?

when did he notice it again? all this time, and he only noticed . .

  
  
  
  


after it had ended?

  
  
  
  
  


wait.

  
  


“someone told me,” sabo begins, slow. “someone who makes braided cords. they represent the flow of time. twisting and tangling and unraveling and mending together again.” his eyes widen. across from him, robin’s narrow.

“wait,” he breathes, and one hand fumbles for his phone without him realizing. he finds the corner of a map, instead. “if i went there . .”

robin’s hand falls over his. he jumps, but she doesn’t pull back, even when he finally looks into her eyes.

“not tonight, at least, okay sabo?” robin murmurs. “rest tonight. it’s been a lot day.”

he nods. right. it had been a long day. and the weekend wasn’t over. he still had time.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


except, did he really have time?

  
  
  


he writes a note, early, too early in the morning. he tells the girls to head back to goa. he would catch up with them.

there was one more place he had to check.

-

he has the old ramen chef take him back out to fuusha. or, to an area of the corvo mountains east of it. the sky is overcast, the sun barely rising, and the man is obviously not happy about driving all the way out to his birth town yet again. but he couldn’t deny sabo’s money.

sabo drums out a rhythm on his thigh, looking at his phone, at a spot where he suspected the shrine to be. he’d only been out there once. and there were higher mountains. but he didn’t think any plateau’d out like this one had, and sabo was fair with his geography. 

he had to trust his gut, too, in this case.

the chef takes him past the winding road leading through the wreckage of the twin lakes. past the first of the torii gates outside the village. past some of the lower mountain paths that he definitely remembered from his spontaneous mountain hike one early summer morning.

there’s thunder rumbling, when they reach sabo’s stop. he pulls his jacket tighter. it was rainy season, after all.

before he can open the door, the old man has plopped a wrapped bento into his lap. sabo glances over, surprise marring his features.

“eat that on your way up,” the man grunts, starting the car back up again. sabo slides out of his seat. “that drawing you did, of fuusha . .” he nods, staring back out the front window. “it was good.”

sabo can hear the hidden words. _ i liked it. it felt good, to see home again. to see home intact. _

“thanks for the food,” sabo mutters over the wind, then slams the car door shut. it pulls away, back down the road, before he’s properly started up the path.

-

sabo’s hood is up before too long. puddles collect beneath his feet.

he walks for hours, it feels like. when the rain gets too heavy, he finds shelter, takes out the bento. he eats while he works, finding his place uncharted on his phone’s map, and using the trail guide on the paper map to figure how far he’d come. he traces the path with a pen, marking it over. halfway. almost halfway.

with the cloud cover, he can’t figure out how much time has passed. had he made good time? was he going to end up stuck here past dark?

he finishes the bento and packs up again. no time to waste thinking about it. best he just get moving again.

when he makes it to the summit, the rain has stopped. it’d slowed to a drizzle as he crossed the trees wrapped in shimenawa, protective charms weighed down by the water, unable to float along in the breeze. he’s taken it as a good sign, then. it’s definitely a good sign, now.

he hurries down the side of the crater. careful, because of the slick, but fast, too.

  
  
  
  
  


it’s foggy, on the plateau. bits of mist stir up all around him. he can see the tree, though, the limestone underneath. his legs tremble beneath him.

so this, at least, was real. this was never on the news. that he knew for sure.

this was the place he knew. luffy had never been. if ace had, it had been a long time. 

this was the place he drew over and over, captivated by the scenery, devoted to the meaning. 

to musubi.

he blinks, and then he’s running, and tossing the hood from his head, and flicking the dewdrops from his lashes. he runs until he hits the edge of the river circle, swelled from the rain, stretching far wider than a few stones across, and far deeper than they were standing.

he stands at the other side, breathing heavily from his run, and looks down at the cord on his wrist.

“it’s real,” he breathes, voice lost to the rain, picking up again. “i’m not crazy.”

sabo steps forward and underestimates how deep the river is now. he trips on the slope, gasps as he falls. the splash he creates is louder than the rain, and he gasps again, sitting there, water up to his chest. 

then, he picks himself up, shivering, stumbles across. in the middle, in the deep, the water is back up to his chest. he’s lucky his backpack is sealed, water-resistant. 

he makes it to the limestone and the steps and slows down, not wanting to trip here, remembering the uneven stairs and the long fall and the dim lighting and the pool of water below, depths unknown and contents questionable. 

he stumbles over to the shrine in the back, tossing aside his wet pack and kneeling before the shimenawa strung across the wall. his eyes catch on the stone bottles resting there, covered in moss, a testament to the time they’d spent there. 

“the left one is luffy’s,” he murmurs. “the right one is mine.” the one he carried up. him and luffy and garp. one early summer day, where the wind was still chill enough to bite, where it was still cold enough to drink tea from a thermos, this high up.

_ his. _ no, that wasn’t right. he’d made the pilgrimage, sure, but-

“ace made the contents,” he mutters, picking up the bottle. it slides a little in his grasp, the moss slick. he sets his phone down, just enough juice left for the flashlight to work, to illuminate the small space that the outside shine couldn’t reach.

ace made the contents _ three years ago. _ the ace he knew was from . .

sabo frowns.

he moves from a kneel to a proper sitting position. “so our timelines . . were offset?” he mutters. “by three years?”

he unties the cord around the bottle. uncorks it. _ lets hope three years is enough time to ferment. _

he pours some of the sake into the cap, holds it near the light. looks clear. _ this is half of ace. _

_ half of _ace.

he breathes in, deeply.

“please,” he whispers, clenching his eyes tight, bowing his head to the god of the shrine. “this sake is musubi. time. if it can unravel, then please, _ please _ , give me one last chance.” he ignores his trembling, the tears slipping from his cheeks. “ _ please _.”

the sake tastes terrible.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


he slips, coming to a stand. his gasp is audible, a small, panicked thing that echoes in the enclosed space. he thinks, for one moment, _ this is how i die, by hitting my head, and no one will ever find the body way out here _.

then he thinks, in the next moment, gaze now on the ceiling of the cavern, visible from his phone’s light, _ oh, that’s the comet _.

drawn there, somehow, in colored something. chalk, he thinks. stars and sky and _ comet _, clear as day, one whole nucleus, one long tail, but right before his eyes it shifts, breaks apart, and he chokes, reaches a hand up to stop it-

his thread dangles in front of his face, unbound from the clasp at his wrist.

-

there’s a woman. she has light, beautiful hair, and ace’s freckles. there’s a hibiscus flower tucked into their folds.

sabo stares. he feels light. his eyes _ see _. 

she doesn’t acknowledge him.

he sees a kind mother. a doting father. a baby brother. 

a hospital room. 

  
  
  


an absent father. ace, pressed into the corner, listening to the screams but hating it. garp pressuring dragon. dragon leaving, finally, for the last time.

  
  


_ who are you? _

_ sabo? no, that’s not good enough! who _ are _ you? what’s happening? _

  
  
  


_ this isn’t a dream, y’know. _

  
  
  


_ i don’t wish i was him. _

_ i wish i was robin, there with him. _

  
  
  


“luffy, i’m going to goa for a bit.” ace pushes past his brother, tosses on a jacket over his uniform shirt. “cover for me, okay?”

“what?” luffy blanches, behind him. ace doesn’t turn around. “wait- why?”

he stops.

“if i don’t leave now, i won’t make it,” he says. then he hurries off, and luffy is left stammering, not sure what to make of it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“hey, gramps,” ace mutters. garp turns away from the open shoji and his eyes slant. ace’s gaze is turned the same direction, down below, where his braided cord dangles in his loose grasp. his hair falls around his shoulders. “ . . i need a favor, okay?”

  
  
  


ace stands in front of the mirror. luffy’s forced him into a yukata, but he doesn’t mind. he fingers his hair, short now, barely brushing his neck.

_ it crashed during the festival _.

“no!” sabo shouts. he reaches out. “ace, no! you have to get out, you have to leave!”

  
  
  


ace stands on the slope, his eyes caught onto the splitting comet, getting lower and lower. sabo dashes through him, reaching out. he tries again, spinning around. “ace! you have to leave!” he screams. bits of the meteor split off, crash into the lake, into the surrounding hills, shards of red cast into plumes of smoke. sabo’s vision goes blurry. ace’s gaze is fixed on the sky above.

“ACE!” he screams. “PLEASE!”

ace’s gaze is caught. he doesn’t see sabo.

  
  
  
  


then he doesn’t see at all.

-

sabo wakes with a sputter. his eyes are dry, but his heart is heavy.

he gasps, rolls over, feels his head for signs of blood. then he blinks.

it’s bright. his hair is warm and thick.

he brings his hands down. they’re a familiar tanned shade.

“i’m . .” he breathes.

he starts crying for real, burying his face into his hands. that’s how luffy finds him, hunched over, sobbing, when he finally opens the door.

“at least you’re not toying with your hair,” he mutters.

sabo turns quick. “luffy!” he gasps. “my little brother, lu-!”

luffy’s face grows from shocked to pained to bewildered. the door is shut in sabo’s face before he can crush the boy into a hug.

  
  
  
  


“i’m ace,” he mutters, still in wonder. he stalks over to the mirror. “hair’s short,” he mutters, eyes narrowing.

_ no, this is fine. the comet hasn’t struck yet. you still have time, day of or not. _

“luffy already left,” garp tells him. “says you’ve finally lost it.” he squints. “i don’t see it.”

sabo hums, gaze fixed on the television in the corner. the reporter was rambling, oh tonight was the night! the climax! the brightest peak of the comet!

perfect. he still had time.

eight pm. that was the deadline. he glances to the clock. just over twelve hours.

sabo turns, takes a seat at the table across from garp, and picks up a bowl of rice. he’d need energy, if he was gonna do this right.

garp’s brows raise as he gets a good look at sabo’s face. “you,” he grunts. “you’re not ace, are ye?”

sabo sits up straighter, so fast his legs bang into the table. he winces, caught in surprise by the pain. “you knew?!”

“nah.” garp waves him off. “just . . seeing you act so strange brought up some old memories. i used to dream about a different life too, you know.” he squints. “actually, i think dragon did, too, back in the day.”

_ oh _. “so it’s inherited?” sabo mutters. then, louder, “maybe it was all leading up to this.” he nods, looks garp straight in the eye. “hey, gramps, listen. a comet’s gonna hit fuusha tonight. everyone’s gonna die, unless we do something.”

garp gives him one moment. one. then he twists his face into a look of utter bafflement and betrayal both. “what now?”

-

“guess i can’t expect an old person to have the best reaction,” sabo mutters, running up the road, rubbing at his head. “sure can hit hard, though.”

-

“ace!” lami gasps. “y-your hair!”

sabo pauses, twisting his expression from determination to confusion. “oh, yeah. it did look better long, right?” he slaps himself, shaking his head, and both kidd and lami perk up at the action. “no, no, that’s not the point! listen, if we don’t do anything, everyone’s gonna die!”

lami and kidd exchange looks. again. sabo’s eyes narrow. he wasn’t gonna let the doubt settle. he _ needed _ them.

he slams his hands on the desk, and they both jump. “let’s get to work!”

-

kokoro stops in her scanning of the items, a stray thought crossing her mind. “oh? lami dear, why aren’t you at school?”

the brunette freezes, then laughs, sheepish. “ah. well. just saving the town.”

kokoro frowns. “ah?”

-

“there are early warning systems all over town,” kidd says, typing away on the old laptop. “we could activate those. everyone would hear it then.”

“oh, great! that’s genius, kidd!” sabo’s smile stretches wide over ace’s face. he bounces in his seat, then pushes kidd over, hitting ‘enter’ to his search and glancing at the results. “i knew i could count on you for this stuff!”

“hey, scoot over!” kidd barks, though it’s not nearly as rough as it could be. “give me my space! geez.”

“ah, what? worried about getting close now?” sabo tips his head, smile stretching into a smirk. kidd’s face turns red.

the door bangs open and lami stalks in, arms full of sacks filled with sugar and junk food. “ahhh!” she complains, loudly. “granny kokoro thinks i’m nuts now!”

“she’ll be thanking you later!” sabo retorts, leaning over the back of the ripped couch to take the bags from her. lami huffs.

“yeah, yeah. tell me that once this works.” she tosses a roll of bills next to the computer. “there’s your change. so? what plan did you hatch?”

  
  
  


lami blanches. “a bomf?!” she yells around a handful of candy, cheeks stuffed like a squirrel. she holds her hands in front of her lips to keep them from spilling out. on the couch, sabo and kidd cackle, taking swigs around their sodas.

“yeah. there are some water-gel ones out at the warehouse dad owns,” kidd says, digging through one of the sacks again. 

  
  
  
  


lami chokes on her candy, gasps until she’s cleared it with water. “broadcast hijacking?!” she yells, near hysterics.

“i know the frequency for the early warning system,” kidd boasts.

“plug it in, and we can broadcast from school,” sabo adds. he sets down his sugar snack, brings the map he’d brought closer. a broad area of the town is circled in red. he points to their location, outside the border. “high school’s out of the blast radius. it’s the perfect evacuation site. oh.” he nods to lami. “also, you do the broadcast.”

“m-me?” she squeaks, falling back in her chair. “i-i-i’m gonna be a criminal. wait, why me?!”

“you’re in the broadcast club,” sabo deadpans, popping a piece of shortcake into his mouth.

“i’m explosives guy,” kidd pipes up, grinning.

“and i’m talking to the mayor,” sabo mutters around his next bite.

lami’s expression turns pensive. “eh?”

“we’re not gonna get everyone out without city hall’s help,” kidd moans.

“i’m his son, after all.” sabo shrugs. “i’ll convince him.”

lami still looks entirely unsure. “well, it’s good to have confidence . .”

sabo stares at her until she gives.

“fine, fine! this is still all some fantasy you have cooked up. right?” her brow cocks. “i’m not dying at seventeen, right?”

sabo deadpans. “uh-”

“well, it’s not entirely impossible.” kidd spins around, laptop in hand, and holds it out for lami to see, pushing sabo to the edge of the cushions. “fuusha’s lake was formed by a meteor in the first place, y’know?” sabo’s eyes widen as he catches sight of the diagram on the screen. lami stops chewing to lean forward, squinting.

“oh,” he breathes. “so the comet at the shrine . .” his face brightens. “yeah! kidd, you’re right! that’s exactly what it was!”

he pushes back, so the laptop isn’t in his face, then offers his fist. kidd grins, bumps it, sets the laptop down. lami frowns behind them.

“since when did you two get so close?” she mutters.

sabo and kidd turn back in unison, and kidd throws his arm over sabo’s shoulders. _ i’ll allow it, _ he thinks, still feeling the adrenaline. maybe it was all the sugar, actually.

“let’s do this!” they say to lami. after a moment, she sighs in defeat.

-

sabo’s confidence plummets.

he clams up.

dragon leans heavily on his desk. he’s not amused.

“you can’t be serious.”

he feels his breath catch, but then the fire lights again. he had to do this. he _ had _ to. he knew it’d be-

“we have to evacuate the town,” sabo says, near frantic. he tries to steady himself again. “if not, everyone-”

“will die?” dragon finishes, brow raising. sabo slams his jaw shut so hard his teeth rattle. he nods, expression firm. 

dragon sighs.

“_ we _ have to evacuate, hm?” he mutters. sabo’s heart skips a beat at the indifference.

“the comet is going to split? and crash? and then, boom, five hundred dead?”

dragon speaks so calmly, denouncing everything sabo has said, has warned him of. he speaks in a way that demands a response. sabo can only nod.

dragon sighs and closes his eyes for a long moment. sabo’s boiling blood freezes.

“you’re not serious,” he repeats. “if you are, then you are sick.” he opens his eyes, reaches a hand for the phone on the corner of his desk. “must be from your grandfather,” he mutters. “i’ll have someone drive you to a hospital-”

sabo’s boiling again. he snaps, stepping forward the last two feet, slamming a hand on the desk before dragon’s touches the phone. it works, catches his attention. sabo grits his teeth and lashes out, swiping his hand across, knocking the phone and a bunch of papers to the ground. “screw you!” he spits. he leans forward across the desk, grabs dragon by his _ tie _ , and tugs him forward, eye-to-eye with him, with _ ace _ . “you arrogant _ bastard _,” he snarls.

then he sees the surprise in dragon’s eyes. his fire dies. he makes a noise in the back of his throat, releases him, moves back.

“ace?” dragon murmurs, frozen in his spot. then, slowly, his eyes narrow the tiniest amount. he leans back in his seat. “no.”

_ i think dragon did, too, back in the day. _

sabo’s eyes widen.

“who are you?” dragon asks, voice no longer calm, composure shaken.

“i-” sabo’s lips tremble. “i-”

-

he stalks down the street, back to where home was. he tosses his arms above his head, yelling in frustration. tears still prick the corners of his eyes.

“hey, hey, let’s meet up for the festival later tonight!”

he drops his arms, heart heavy, and watches some kids break apart from their conversation. before he can think it through, he reaches out, snatches one by the arm. “no, you shouldn’t go tonight!” he begs. “you should leave! and tell all your friends, too!”

a hand comes around his arm, tight. the kids run off. he looks down. luffy is glaring up at him, but it’s not one of anger. more of concern.

“ace!” he says, urgency in his tone. “what’s wrong with you?”

sabo starts blubbering. “i can’t do it. it’s not me. ace could though, right? if it were ace, he could convince them.”

luffy starts shaking his arm. “ace!”

“luffy!” sabo lunges, knees on the ground and then scoops the boy up. “you should go! take gramps and skip town!”

luffy wriggles in his grip. “what are you on about?” he shouts. “lemme go!”

sabo does, luffy finally wrestling from his hold. he huffs once he’s hit the ground. “honestly! yesterday you suddenly decide to go off to goa, and then you come back all moody, and then this! ace, what _ happened _?”

sabo blinks, all his panicked thoughts sliding out of place and tumbling somewhere out of view. “goa?”

“heeeey! aceeee!” lami calls, her and kidd rounding a corner on his bike. 

“why was he . . ?” sabo mutters.

lami frowns when she gets no response. her and kidd stop before luffy. “hey, what’s wrong with your brother?”

luffy just shrugs.

oh.

sabo looks up. far, far up, past the ridge, past the house, to a distant mountain. “are you there, ace?” he mutters.

he jerks his gaze away. it lands on the bike.

  
  
  
  


he pushes kidd off. “hey. i’m borrowing this, okay?”

“wha-?” kidd makes to grab his arm, but sabo dodges, maneuvers the bike around, climbs on. “ace! where are you going?”

he pushes on the pedals, takes off. 

“what about the plan?” kidd calls.

sabo’s head whips around. “get ready! make sure everything is ready!”

he pushes off again, hard, and speeds up, rounding the corner. the sun is high. “i’ll make it, i’ll make it,” he mutters, over and over and over.

-

ace wakes up to cold and quiet.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


he sits with a gasp, hands wandering up to scar tissue, to stringy hair, to baggy clothes. “sabo!” he breathes, sharp and deep. 

he breathes in again, rougher this time, on the verge of crying. he wraps skinny arms around sabo’s wiry form, and sits there, in front of the shrine. 

_ why am i here? _

_ wait. _

he pushes himself out of the cave. the sky is cleared, sun shining through. he pushes himself across the bloated river, up to the edge of the crater, onto the lip. he stands there, and his breath catches as he sees the two lakes.

“fuusha,” he breathes. gone. _ gone _.

and then it all comes back.

he collapses. his legs just give out, and he falls hard to the rock underneath, wincing at the impact. he puts his hands on his temples, gasping.

“i . . died.” he shakes his head. “i died. i’m dead. i’m actually dead.”

but he wasn’t. he was here. he was here, right? he wasn’t dreaming.

then. then!

  
  
  
  


where was sabo.

was sabo-

-

sabo pedals faster. he’s almost to the base of the mountain. the sun is sinking.

-

“wait, ace!” luffy finally calls out, and then he’s running to catch up. “at least tell me why! what’s in goa?”

“a date!” ace insists. luffy comes up short, nearly faceplants into the ground.

“you have a date?!” he cries out. “you have a boyfriend in goa?”

“no!” ace shakes his head. “it-it’s not my date!”

luffy’s face twists. “what?”

  
  
  
  


_ this is stupid! _ace curses, huddling into himself in the empty train car.

_ how are you ever going to find him? _ he thinks, shuffling onto the next car.

_ this station is huge! _ he’d seriously underestimated the size of shinjuku. it was after ten, though. he wouldn’t find sabo here.

_ maybe this one? _ but the footbridge is empty. he knows he’s early, so he waits. and waits.

it’s near sunset when he sighs, gives up.

“this was a waste of time,” he mutters, set on one of the benches outside a train stop. not the one he needs to be on, but he wants one last chance-

a car speeds by and he glances up.

his breath catches in the back of his throat.

ace moves up so fast he knocks his bag to the ground. he grabs it in a rush, sprinting to where the train is rolling to a stop. he’s panting as the doors open, letting a few people off. he wastes no time in pushing his way in, towards where he saw-

ace stops. he’s still breathing a little hard.

sabo is right in front of him.

-

sabo crashes the bike. he leaves it, bent and broken, and sprints the rest of the way up the mountain.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“sabo?”

ace’s lips quirk up. sabo had some notes in his hand, reading over them. as studious as always. he tries again.

“sabo?”

the blond blinks, casts a glance up. ace’s smile grows. sabo’s expression becomes guarded.

“uh . . it’s me,” ace says. damn, he had this whole speech prepared. and then he decided he didn’t need it, that they would just _ know _ when they saw each other. he knew, at least.

sabo folds his notes to his chest. “sorry? have we met?”

ace’s smile becomes crooked. “uh, yeah?” it downturns. “wait, you don’t remember?” becomes a proper frown, though more of a pout. “seriously?”

“who are you again?” sabo asks. there’s slight annoyance in his tone. it stings.

now it’s a proper frown. ace bites on his tongue, resists all the words he wants to say. “uh, sorry to bother you,” he says instead, turns his head away.

sabo continues watching him. he blinks, again. ace’s blush grows in embarrassment.

god. what had he been thinking.

_ didn’t dragon tell me a similar story, a long time ago? _

_ wait. why am i thinking about him again? _

he huffs. the train screeches to a halt. the crowd shifts. he bumps into sabo. “uh, sorry!” he mutters, blush reaching his ears now.

_ stupid, stupid, stupid! _

he should just get off here. transfer to his line. make it back to fuusha by the night. the door opens and he turns, guided by the crowd.

“wait!”

ace blinks. he moves his head and sees sabo staring at him. his heart skips a beat.

“what’s your name?” sabo asks. ace is turned again, forced by the crowd. he makes a panicked noise, nearly out the door. sabo isn’t going to get off. it was now or never. he was going to lose his chance-!

ace thinks quickly. he reaches into his hair, unties his braided cord. as he’s finally pushed through the door, he lashes out with it, and miraculously, sabo catches it. “ace!” he calls, over the bustle of the more-crowded station. “my name’s ace!”

he lets go. sabo latches on. the train door slides shut.

-

“you idiot!” sabo huffs, sprinting through the underbrush, tearing his face up. he wipes his eyes again, trying to make his vision less blurry. “you idiot!” he calls out again, louder.

“that was three years ago!” he screams, loud in the quiet forest. “i didn’t know you then!” _ i only knew you when you were gone _, he cries, silent, and lets out a wail aloud. 

-

ace comes to a stand, on the crest. he can feel-

“sabo?” he shouts.

he turns his gaze from the twin lakes. “sabo!” he shouts. “you’re here, aren’t you?”

and then- there! in the far distance, and he turns, looks down the crest, but it stretches for miles around, he can’t run around it-

_ “ace!” _

there. another shout, _ his name, _ barely audible but there nonetheless.

he starts running. “sabo!” he calls. “sabo! i’m here!”

_ “ace!” _

louder, this time. closer? louder. but closer?

he stops running, turns. “sabo!”

_ “ace?!” _

he turns, sprints the other way. “sabo!” he calls, voice growing hoarse.

_ “ace!” _ sabo calls, and it’s close, so close this time-

ace spins on his heel. he stops entirely. there’s something . .

“sabo?”

he walks forward a few paces. he’s facing the lakes again, where fuusha used to sit.

_ “ace?” _ sabo’s voice echoes, and he halts, because it’s right in front of him. 

  
  
  
  


_ “ace,” _ sabo breathes, because he can feel it. he reaches forward, one hand carefully extended.

but it swipes through the air.

  
  
  
  


“you’re here, aren’t you?” ace asks, lowering his own arm. sabo hums in affirment. ace chokes back a sob. “i knew it.” he lowers his gaze. “but we can’t . .”

  
  
  
  
  


“we’re still in different times,” sabo breathes. but they were talking, somehow. was it the musubi? that had to be it, right?

it grows dark. he turns towards the lake, towards a big cloud hiding the last of the sun’s rays, casting the area into-

“twilight,” he notes, faintly.

“half-light,” a voice corrects.

his eyes widen.

sabo turns, slowly, to find ace there. oh. so the old man had been right, he thinks faintly. twilight. where all the funny stuff happens.

his eyes slip close. when he opens them again, ace is still there. there are tears in his eyes.

“you’re crying?” sabo teases.

“my face is already wet,” ace retorts.

sabo laughs. it’s a short, quiet thing. it holds a lot of weight. “yeah,” he murmurs. “i-”

ace crashes into him, arms wrapping around his waist, head pressed into his chest. he had a few inches over him. well, he is older, in this moment. 

“i can’t believe it,” ace mutters. “i can’t believe you’re here.”

sabo hiccups. his arms go around ace, as well. “it took a lot of work, to come find you,” he chokes. “you live out in the middle of nowhere!”

“i know! i hate it!”

“i know,” sabo echoes, quieter this time. ace moves his head back, and he stares into grey eyes.

“but how?” ace says. “how is this possible? didn’t i . . that day . . .”

“ah,” sabo starts. “aheh.” his gaze moves to the shrine. “i . . drank your sake.”

ace shudders against him. “m-my kuchikame-sake?” he stammers. sabo looks down to find his face completely red, and ace stumbles away from him. “_ that _ sake? that’s actually kinda sick, sab, who’d wanna drink that? seriously!”

sabo huffs. “it’s the meaning that’s important! y’know, musubi?”

“musu-what?” ace’s face screws up. sabo sighs.

“you have a lot to catch up on. seriously,” he groans. “why’d we have to switch on one of your most important days?”

“huh?” ace tips his head. “what are you on about now?”

“nevermind.” he reaches out, catches a piece of ace’s shortened hair between his fingers. “still can’t believe you did this,” he mutters.

ace snatches it back, affronted. “i was!” he stops, blushing again. “well you!”

sabo’s brow raises. “and whose fault was that, coming to see me that early?”

“i didn’t know!” ace’s gaze catches on something low. “oh. that’s . .”

sabo looks down, blinks. “ah.” he raises his wrist. “your braided cord,” he notes. then, without wasting another second, he unhooks the clasp, unravels it from around his wrist. “here,” he says, holding it out for ace.

ace blinks. “you sure?”

“yeah.” sabo shrugs, setting it down in ace’s outstretched palm. “i’ve had it for three years now. it’s time you have it back.”

“okay.” ace clenches his hands. sabo drops his own, but he doesn’t step back. 

  
  
  


ace reaches up, wraps the band around his neck, over his hair. he ties it down the side, where the spiked ends hide it a little, then knots it shut. “there. how’s it look?”

sabo blinks, then looks away. “ah, fine.”

ace’s eyes widen. “liar!” he laughs, smacking sabo’s arm. sabo laughs with him.

“yeah,” he murmurs. “it looks great.”

ace’s lips purse. this time, he turns away. “oh.”

sabo follows his gaze. “the comet,” he notes. then, to ace, “you’ve still got time.”

ace nods. “okay. okay! right. i can do this.”

sabo pushes his hand into ace’s dark locks, rustles them a little. “yeah. you’ve got this.”

ace doesn’t move his head away. they stay like that for a long moment.

it gets darker.

ace turns away first. “half-light’s almost over,” he murmurs.

“twilight,” sabo corrects.

ace rolls his eyes. “whatever.”

“hey.” sabo removes his hand and ace visibly pouts. he slides it into his jacket and pulls out the marker he’d used to draw on the map, trace his path up. “i have an idea.”

“i’m listening.”

he upcaps the marker. “so we don’t forget, when we wake up.” he smiles, takes ace’s hand. “let’s write our names, okay?” 

  
  
  
  


ace’s eyes widen. he glances down, but sabo’s pressing the pen over his writing, and half-light is fading fast. “okay. okay!” he grabs sabo’s hand, reaches out, draws the first diagonal for the ‘A’.

the pen drops.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


sabo stares at the pen. it’s grown dark. “oh,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

he blinks. maybe they just couldn’t see each other. “hey, ace. i wanted to say, to tell you, that i’ll find you. wherever you end up. i swear i will.” he clenches his fist, covers up the stray ink mark. “and i won’t forget you, okay? you name is ace. i won’t forget.”

there’s only silence. 

“ace?”

he sighs.

“no, that’s okay. you have to hurry.” he shakes his head. “i won’t forget, okay? ace! your name is ace! ah!” he bends down, snatches the pen. he starts tracing the stray mark, then pauses.

his hand trembles.

“wait,” he breathes. “who . . ?”

“no!” he argues. “i came all the way out here! i came to save him! i lo-” his words catch. he bends over. his legs give out. the pen falls from his grasp.

“no,” he whispers. “why can’t-? what?” he shakes his head, stares at the stray mark.

“your name . .”

-

ace runs.

he runs as fast as he can. overhead, the comet soars, moving a million miles faster than he is.

he meets kidd at the factory. the powerplant. the entire village’s electrical grid. comes to a stop, slamming into the chainlink, still panting, when he rolls up on his motorbike.

“he says sorry about your bike,” ace calls. kidd cuts the engine.

“who says?”

“i do!” ace corrects.

kidd throws his duffel to the ground, takes out a pair of heavy-duty pliers. “you’re sure about this, ace?” he questions, one last time, a hard glint in his eyes. “that thing’s really coming down?” he points to the comet with the tool.

ace nods fervently. “saw it myself,” he swears.

kidd cackles. “you did, huh? alright, fine.” he steps forward, positions the pliers around the chain lock. “get ready!” he clips it and it falls to the ground, slack. “this means we’re criminals now!”

  
  
  


“you still have to convince your dad!” kidd calls back, loud over the bike’s engine. ace tightens his grip, nodding.

“yeah, i know!” he cocks his head back. “think that thing’s really gonna blow?”

“i sure hope so!” kidd yells. right as he finishes, an explosion echoes from behind them. ace screams, lunges forward, and kidd laughs, steadying his trembling hands on the handles of the motorbike. “whaddya know! dad taught me well, huh!”

“you’re crazy!” ace screams.

“says the guy who came up with this scheme!” kidd screams back.

he skids to a stop when they reach stairs, not risking going down them. ace jumps off, but kidd waits an extra second, caught with the bike’s momentum. ace stumbles on the stairs, glances back. “kidd!” he calls in panic, but kidd’s rolling to a stand too, the bike upturned behind him. 

“good, good!” he gasps, grabbing ace’s arm to pull him forward. “c’mon! let’s go, let’s go!”

  
  
  
  
  


the power cuts out. all the bombs he and kidd had set at the plant had blown, shot the circuits to bits. ace takes a deep breath as they round the corner into the festival square, booths no longer lit. no comet. not yet. they wouldn’t go for it. he had to settle for something more realistic.

“forest fire!” kidd calls, just as the emergency sirens begin ringing out. “there’s a fire, we have to evacuate! hurry!”

_ “this is fuusha city council. due to the explosive at the power plant, there’s been a warning of forest fires and other explosions. if you live in the following districts, please evacuate immediately to fuusha high school.” _

“fire!” ace calls, sprinting after kidd. “please evacuate! there’s a fire coming!”

he can see it’s not working. the people look confused, and the sirens have them on edge, but they’re not moving. lami’s voice rings out, perfect calm even though she must be terrified. she reminds him so much of-

ace stops dead in his tracks.

kidd whips around. “this isn’t working. we really do need city council to-” his face screws up. “ace, what’s wrong?”

ace doesn’t cry. he doesn’t cry unless things are very emotional, like when dragon left, or when he met sabo for the first time, tonight. he’s not the crier. he doesn’t cry.

he’s crying.

“his name!” he blabs, frantic. “i can’t remember his name!”

kidd’s expression darkens. “are you fucking kidding me!” he yells. his hands wrap around ace’s shoulders. “ace! forget about that! we have bigger problems here, right?!”

ace’s body shakes with effort as he works to keep his sobs contained. “but-! but-” he shakes his head. then he pushes kidd’s hands off, roughly. he slaps his own face hard, twice, thrice. “sorry!” he shouts. “i’ll go, i’m going!” he starts running. kidd takes off in the opposite direction. “i’ll make it!” he promises. “i promise!”

“you better!” kidd calls.

-

“hey! what do you think you’re doing in the broadcast room?”

lami cuts off with a scream, panicking. “i- uh- i-” three teachers storm in. one councilman grabs her wrist. another turns the broadcast off.

“seriously, trafalgar,” one of the teachers huffs, marching her down the hall. “what were you thinking? do you have any idea of the consequences-”

lami walks between them, tears streaming down her face, audibly crying. “s-sorry,” she says, but it’s not to them. “sorry, ace,” she chokes. “i’m sorry!”

-

kidd glances up and his heart stops. “it’s really splitting,” he mutters. and not just in half. there were dozens of little comets, meteorites, lighting up the sky now. 

“kidd!”

he comes to a full stop, wincing. he cocks his head over, and his dad is coming to meet him down a set of stairs. a couple of his workers are behind him.

“sorry, ace,” he mutters. “this is it for me.”

-

the broadcast cuts out and ace curses. “no! shit! lami!” he cries. _ please be okay! _

he tears down the street, taking the higher ground, knowing the path to the council building by heart, whether he wanted to or not. he passes by a railing, where the ground jutts, and glances up. _ the comet! how much ti- _

_ no! _

he looks up to a meteor shower. they were almost out of time.

he speeds up, but his foot catches on the uneven ground, and he trips, tumbles. he lands on the ground hard, air knocked from him, and then rolls downhill, until he hits another jutt, flips, crashes to the ground.

he lies there, trying to remember to breathe again. his head spins. his hands are in front of him.

he curls into himself. he was too late anyway, right? it wouldn’t work, right? he couldn’t outspeed a bunch of falling rocks. the plan didn’t work none of it worked-

_ “so we don’t forget our names when we wake up.” _

ace breathes out, slow. he uncups his hand. that was right. his name was right-

he stares.

his name isn’t written on ace’s hand.

his lips tremble. “idiot!” he gasps. 

_ i love you _ is written in marker.

ace fists his hand, sobs into the gravel. “how am i supposed to remember your name with this!” he cries out, impossibly loud. he lies there for another moment, another, another.

then he pushes himself to his knees, lips stretched into a smile. he wails, laughs, comes to a stand. 

“okay!” he calls out, starting to run again.

“fine!”

“i’ll do it!”

“i’m going to LIVE!”

-

“dad!” ace calls, slamming dragon’s door open. luffy perks up from the couch, clambering to his feet. garp looks over as well.

from behind his desk, dragon stands. “ace!” he growls. “listen, i don’t have time for-”

ace sets his face, stalks closer, and dragon shuts up.

“no. you are going to _ listen to me _ ,” ace shouts. “for _ once in your goddamn life! _ because i’m _ not dying _ again!”

-

the meteor still crashes.

the nucleus of the comet hits right behind ace’s house, near the torii gate that leads further into the side of the mountain. 

the ground breaks. wood from whole tree trunks flies everywhere. the lake water evaporates into steam, and then crumbles under the weight of multiple little meteors that had broken off of the nucleus.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


sabo wakes up.

sabo wakes up on top of a mountain.

he sits up. the sun is shining behind him. the water from the twin lakes down far, far below glitters.

he looks down at his palm, where a streak of ink was left. he squints.

“where am i?” he mumbles.

-

five years later

  
  


“what’s with the suit? party’s not til tonight.”

sabo pauses right inside the doorway, hand still holding it half closed. he deadpans, resists the reply he wants to say. “i’m not wearing this to the party,” he says instead, finally shutting the front door. shanks’ expression still doesn’t change, seeking an answer, and after shuffling off his shoes sabo sighs and supplies him with one. “i had a job interview today.”

“oh?” shanks steps aside to allow sabo access to the rest of the apartment, but then immediately follows at his heels. “how’d that go?”

sabo stops, resisting the urge to fidget, and shanks barely avoids crashing into him. they stand still in the middle of the hall for a couple moments.

“newspaper market is more competitive than i thought,” he finally mutters. 

shanks hunkers down, shoulders shaking in an attempt to contain his laughter. “and-” he pauses as he catches sabo’s eye, the blond turning his head to gaze down at his former guardian. “koala has-”

“two offers,” sabo grunts. he rolls his eyes. “just say she’s better than me. i know you want to.” he pauses again at the entrance to the kitchen, gaze falling to the empty table. “makino’s not here?”

“ah, no. she’s meeting us there.” shanks passes him by, finally, patting him on the shoulder as he went. “i actually have a couple things to do before tonight, so i’m heading out. i’ll call you on my way back, grab lunch. be ready by six, okay? party’s at seven.”

“right.” sabo’s only half listening at this point, tugging his bedroom door open.

well. his _ former- _

  
  
  
  


it’s been a while. since he graduated high school and moved out. since he’s been back here.

sabo lets the door slide shut behind him. the curtains are open; his bed is made -makino, probably. 

he moves over to the bookshelf and his fingers run over the spines of twenty marked notebooks, holding all his daily logs from his time spent with makino and shanks.

they pause at number three, and he pulls it out before he can think much of it, flipping through to the back, where he finds the pages more crumpled, like he’d been looking for something and grew frustrated when he couldn’t find it.

sabo reads a page out of interest and pauses when he gets to a familiar name.

  
  
  
  


he’s never remembered why he woke up on the side of that mountain, the sight of fuusha, still in ruins, far below. it still puzzles him sometimes, when he takes a moment to recall. he’d been with koala and robin, but they had gone back to goa before him. he doesn’t know the reason. did they fight? did they have to be back earlier than he did?

he’d been on notebook nine at that point, but he hadn’t had it with him, so nothing of his little country travel got logged. 

he does remember being obsessed with fuusha, at one point.

he puts the notebook back and slides open a desk drawer, frown forming on his face as he catches sight of all the articles still stashed there.

eight years ago. when the comet crashed. he can remember, faintly, watching it from the roof of the apartment building. seeing it split. watching in fascination as hundreds of little meteors grew closer and closer to the surface.

and then. _ crashed. _

it was on the news for days. _ fuusha _ , left decimated. he remembers watching everything, saving every scrap of information, evident by all the papers in the desk drawer. something about it had him _ fascinated. _

he couldn’t, for the life of him, recall what.

the comet crashed on the south side of the lake fuusha had formed around. the shockwaves carried the destruction all the way across, rumbling the ground even at the evacuation point.

thankfully, the town had been performing an emergency drill at the time. everyone had been moved out to the high school, out of reach of the comet’s impact. 

they’d had to relocate, their home left in ruins, but at least they were all alive.

that had been it. miran comet had come, left as half its size, and formed a newer, smaller crater in the ruins of an old mountain village. 

sabo, for the life of him, couldn’t figure why he was so interested.

he shuts the desk drawer.

-

shanks brings home yakisoba. sabo picks the mushrooms out, using the brief silence to address the topic from earlier.

“so, remind me. who’s the party for?”

“ah, an old friend of makino’s,” shanks mumbles around his food. thankfully, he washes it down with water before speaking again. “don’t ask me his name.” he waves off sabo’s look. “some old guy. his grandson’s graduating today. that’s what this all’s for.”

“lots of people?”

shanks quirks a brow, stabbing more noodles. “matter much? not like you have anywhere to be, mister unemployed.”

sabo huffs, picking out the last of the mushrooms. “i said i’d come, didn’t i?”

  
  
  
  
  


several hours later, he might be regretting those words.

the house of makino’s friend was huge. certainly bigger than he was expecting. the family had some wealth, that was for sure. 

the head of the house was an older man with a loud laugh. could hit hard, too, his friendly slap on the back still leaving sabo in shivers if he thought about it too long. he hadn’t seen the man of the hour, but he’d heard of him in passing several times, _ oh he’s gone to do this _ or _ got caught before that could happen _ or _ just saw him doing something he shouldn’t _.

reckless, was his first impression.

as the night wore on, he’d grown too weary to care anymore. now he was camped out on a small balcony, shielded somewhat from the chatter and attention inside. makino had found him and shanks not long after they’d arrived, and gone around introducing them to more people than sabo could ever hope to remember.

he shivers, moving his shoulders more inward. he’d dressed more down for the night than he had that morning, but his sweater wasn’t quite thick enough to keep out the breeze that had picked up. he shifts, leaning more on the low railing, and gazes out at the cityscape. inside, voices raise as a small commotion picks up. he doesn’t pay it mind.

“twilight,” he mutters, gaze caught on the setting sun sliding just beneath the horizon line, bathing the sky in a dim glow.

“half-light,” a voice behind him corrects.

sabo blinks, turns his head back.

there’s someone standing in the doorway, hand on one of the banisters. the backglow from inside the house makes their features hard to place, but the last of the sun’s light puts it into focus. he seemed familiar, but sabo can’t put his finger on it. then it clicks -he looks like makino’s friend.

“you’re not luffy,” he states. if anything, he looked closer to sabo’s age. 

the guy blinks back, a flicker of surprise coating his expression. “i sure hope not,” he answers back, rolling his eyes as an audible shout from back inside reached them.

sabo frowns. “hm.”

he steps forward just as sabo encounters another roaming thought, leaning against the railing a couple feet away, and sabo lets his gaze fall back to the city as he asks. “what’s half-light?”

the guy chuckles, a short, breathy thing that has sabo’s hairs raising. “local dialect,” he answers. “something i picked up back home. it means the same thing.”

sabo blinks, lips closing as his unasked question gets answered. _ not local to here _, he meant to say, but he changes the words now. “what are you here for?”

the color of the sky fades from bright to a deeper blue, and the moon’s glow begins to set in. it catches on his companion’s face as he turns to sabo again, bathes his silver eyes in wan light, bright enough for sabo to catch the confusion before it slips away, like he’s missed something, like he’s asked the wrong question. in another moment it’s gone, and he casually leans against the railing, a smile playing on his lips.

“school, at first,” he hums. “that’s over with now. it’s strange, though. i’ve always dreamed of coming to goa, of getting away from that life.” he shrugs. “i didn’t think i’d be bringing my entire family along, though.”

it’s an offhand gesture, next, that catches sabo’s attention. a wave of a hand, back to the house, and his mind feels open. it could mean different. he could be referring to more of the guests. somehow sabo doubts this, and he latches on to the suspicion. his eyes narrow. “are you sure you’re not luffy?” he asks again, because shanks had only ever mentioned one grandson, and he didn’t appreciate being strung along-

laughing snaps him out of that thought before he can finish it. it’s certainly a different reaction than before, and sabo prepares himself, ready to have the rug ripped from under him, _ yeah, i was messing with you, i am _.

instead, his expectations are ripped to shreds. again.

“_ no _,” the guy insists, laugh petering off. “i’m his older brother.”

before sabo can think much on that, he tips his head, eyes glinting. “and you? never seen you around before. who’d you come with?” he pauses for a moment, eyes going wide, and stifles another laugh with a hand over his mouth. “more like, who drug you here?”

sabo huffs before he can help it. “i came willingly,” he insists. when the guy doesn’t budge, he deigns him an answer. “makino. and shanks.”

the guy’s expression brightens. “oh, makino!” he says, and his tone is entirely different now. brighter. happier. “right, i saw her awhile ago. i didn’t know shanks was here, though, haven’t seen him yet-” he cuts himself off, blinking, as if he had just realized something. “wait. they brought you? no offense, but that seems kinda odd, if you didn’t even know . .” he trails off. “how do you know them?”

sabo hesitates. he hadn’t realized shanks was formally familiar with the family as well, leaving him the outsider in the mix. he’d assumed it was just makino, and that they were both there with her. guess he was wrong. guess- “i lived with them for a bit,” sabo admits.

he purses his lips, relenting as he sees the statement was getting nowhere, his companion still trying to piece it together. “for . . a long time, actually. since i was a kid.” he raises his hands at the alarmed expression across from him. “it wasn’t anything like what you’re thinking,” he says. “it was . . well, they looked after me, and i appreciate them, but they weren’t like my parents or anything.” he shrugs. “they kinda have their own kid now, right? it was similar, but it wasn’t the same.”

“oh. okay.” the guy blinks again, then turns around. he stares at the city for a while, at all the flashing lights, like he had expected different. like he was surprised that the moon was out. he turns back to sabo again. “you don’t know much about us, do you?”

it’s sabo’s turn to look away. kinda obvious at this point, considering he didn’t know there was a second grandson. and yet, instead of defending himself, he felt like admitting. “i didn’t even know your family existed until earlier today. this party was kinda . . sprung on me.”

he blinks, and then turns back to the even gaze of silver eyes. “you said ‘back home’, earlier. where is that?” 

“ah.” he rubs at his head. “well, don’ go around saying that,” he mumbles. “not something i like to admit, that i still consider it . .” his lips screw up; sabo squints as he catches it. they even out as his gaze lifts again, looking back into sabo’s eyes. “you’ve heard of fuusha, right?”

sabo’s lips part, but he stumbles on his reply. he shivers through his sweater. his gaze whites out for a moment, and he blinks it away, desperate to hold on yet feeling like he was missing something, like it was finally _ right there _, on the edge of his consciousness. there’s a roaring in his head, blocking everything out, and when garp’s grandson steps forward, says something out of concern, sabo can’t hear a word over the noise.

he doesn’t hear, frozen stiff, until hands lay on his arms, near his shoulders, and he’s being shaken, just a little. “hey, you’re kinda scaring me here,” sabo hears, and then he blinks, and he’s snapped back to the present, silver eyes right in front of him, cast with concern. he lets his mouth finally fall shut. his gaze shifts away.

“sorry,” he mutters. 

the hands fall. the warmth where they once were lingers, just for a moment. “you good? you sure?”

“fuusha,” sabo says instead of answering, still feeling weird, _ off _, and wanting to draw the topic away from himself. “so you’ve been here five years.”

the guy blinks. “give or take. about.” he moves his hands from hovering in the air, as if sabo would have another fit and pitch forward, to down by his side. sabo’s gaze catches on his wrist, where a red band was looped around. he recalls one of the articles he glanced at earlier in the day, and then nods to it. 

“that’s a braided cord, right?”

a hand wraps around the cord, shielding it from view, before slowly moving away. he lifts it up for sabo to see more clearly, the ends fading from red to yellow to blue, slightly frayed at the edges. “yeah. my mom made it for me.”

-

right as he says that, ace has a startling realization. one that casts him away from the conversation for a moment, that puts perspective into a different light.

the blond reminded him of his mother.

maybe that’s why the interest was there. 

rouge had light hair. it was stringy, most of the time, like she barely bothered taking care of it, instead of meticulously doing so only for the wind that day to blow it out of proportion. though every picture they had left of her had her smiling, he remembered her sunny smiles as rare; she had an array of expressions, and she liked to cast things into doubt, questioning at every turn, much to his grandfather’s annoyance. 

she smiled when ace did, though. just like the blond was now, lips quirking up almost in response to ace’s smile, born there from reminiscing about her.

the moonlight was heavy, now, and ace can see his face clear. his fair skin, something he hadn’t picked up from rouge, and was thankful for, whenever she would come home red and blotchy, a sunburn welling up easily from being out for too long. he remembers her crying to dragon until he offered to rub lotion onto her shoulders, and screaming as luffy came up after and climbed into her arms, rough handprints harming the sensitive skin.

she was stubborn as all hell, and was always willing to get into it with anyone that rubbed her the wrong way. the scourge of fuusha, they called her. and they weren’t wrong, no matter how well she had charmed gramps and dragon into believing otherwise. ace remembers, starkly, her coming in late one night, cupping a bruise on her face, and wincing when she saw ace had caught sight of it.

he blinks, and then she fades into the blond, looking disgruntled, and the bump above his eyebrow put into full view as his bangs are swiped out of the way, evidence of the scuffle he’d gotten into put on display.

ace tugs on the knot tying the cord to his wrist, loosening it. he unravels it and holds it out, between the two of them. “you can look at it, if you want,” he offers, eyes flicking from the cord to the blond.

slowly, he reaches out to take it from ace, fascination shown on his face. “it’s well-made,” he notes, loosely taking it up and holding it closer.

rouge was cunning and smart. she could talk her way out of any situation, from what ace had seen. when she couldn’t, well, she knew how to get away if she couldn’t win in a fight, sporting bruises but still holding a victory overall.

she taught ace how to scrap, but he never really used it. that was more luffy’s thing, when he grew older.

but she taught ace more than how to use his fists. ace hadn’t entered primary school until she’d passed, stubbornly insisting that he was too good for an institution, that she could school him just fine, at home. she’d been good at it, too, despite the deceptive intentions she had, her reasoning more on the lines of having ace all to herself, instead of believing whatever she had spouted about fuusha schools being corrupt.

she taught him how to weave and braid thread. she taught him how to write, how to spell. she taught him the laws of fuusha no one talked about aloud, the silent expectations everyone held. she taught him how to charm gramps into doing whatever he wanted. she taught him how to get away with messing up.

she taught him what love was.

and. he remembers.

as his hand slips back down to his side, wrist bare.

  
  
  


sabo, studious. always complaining at ace for leaving him without homework to turn in, or slacking on class notes and making him stumble on a test. to waking up with his arms covered in ink, angry rant sprawled onto his skin. 

sabo, eyes rimmed red from staying up late to study, leaving ace to drag him from the bed _ far _ too early, refreshed mind doing nothing when the body he was controlling was bone tired. 

he remembers angrily taking a marker to sabo’s skin on days like those, scribbling notes in almost illegible handwriting for him to _ take care of yourself _ and _ go to sleep at reasonable times _ and, his favorite, _ get your shit together! _

he’d write that one over and over, big and bold, across his arms and down his legs, all over his face, so he’d be forced to see it and reevaluate how he treated his body.

sabo, who was quick-witted and scrappy, but too late to throw a punch. ace couldn’t count the number of times he’d woken up in the blond’s body with a split lip or nasty cut or yellowing bruise. then he’d drag himself to school and get yelled at by koala for being reckless _ again _ and making everyone worry _ again _. he’d go home and cover it and ignore makino’s worried eyes the best he could.

that was right. makino and shanks. he lets sabo’s earlier words play back and can’t help but think differently, from what he’d experienced. so they had a baby, a real child, now. it didn’t change the fact that they cared about sabo.

sabo, meticulous. writing notes to ace with a careful script, detailing each event that had transpired while he was in ace’s body. excelling at classwork with knowledge three years ahead of ace’s own. pissing off old man crocus with smarty replies, the exact answer he _ didn’t _ expect to each of his tough questions to things ace shouldn’t have learned yet. managing to do all this, yet never getting ace’s hairstyle right, and tangling his cord, and messing his speech, and attempting to flirt with people he _ definitely shouldn’t be attempting to flirt with. _

sabo, teasing kidd and lami, living ace’s life for him, all those months splitting a body with a guy he had never met. scribbling in thick, crisp font reminders for ace before he went to sleep and woke up in his own body. making sure ace took care of himself. fretting when he didn’t. writing off his own worries and trying to figure why ace was unhappy with life, even as the people around him, ace included, insist he care for himself for a change.

sabo, who wrote and wrote and wrote, detailing his life so that he’d never forget again, like he’d forgotten most of his life before makino and shanks. 

sabo, who reminded him so much of his mother, not just in appearance, but in everything ace had learned and cherished and _ forgotten _, all those years ago.

sabo, who taught him so many things. who taught him, just like his mother, how to love, how to hold dear, how to _ forgive, _ how to _ remember _.

“it’s nice,” sabo mutters, then holds the cord back out for ace to take.

his breath catches. but. bu-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


so he really didn’t remember?

  
  
  
  


ace shuts his eyes for a moment. works on breathing again. he opens them and reaches for the cord, trying not to let his frustration show. before he can grab hold, though, a voice startles the pair of them.

“sabo, there you are! we’re ready to leave now. coming?” shanks is smiling, eyes only for the blond, who flinches back at the noise, and ace’s hand catches onto air as the cord is moved away. he furrows his brow, but doesn’t reach out again.

that’s when shanks seems to notice him. “oh! hey, kid, haven’t seen you in a while!” shanks steps forward to wrap ace in a hug that quickly turns into a mock chokehold, and ace forgoes the cord entirely in favor of latching to shanks’ arm, trying to pry it off.

“yeah, it’s been real nice,” he rasps. “not having to see your ugly mug-”

“ah come on now!” shanks whines. “you don’t really mean that!”

a call of his name has him settling down, and he releases ace when he remembers he was on a time crunch. “right, well, good to see you again. gotta head out now, i’ll stick around longer next time.” he winks and ace does his best exasperated expression, the _ luffy you are being ridiculous to extreme lengths and i am on my last straw _ look, but it breaks when shanks turns away, and he has to smile with his back turned, a little glad he’d gotten to see the redhead again after all this time.

“ready, sabo?” shanks asks. sabo only has time to nod before shanks flashes him a thumbs-up. “great! meet you at the car.” he’s gone after that, skipping back inside, leaving sabo to furrow his brows in confusion.

“car?” he mutters.

“makino drove,” ace tells him, and his attention snaps back up.

“oh.” he nods. his hands tighten into fists. then he realizes. “oh! here’s -this, back.”

he reaches out again, but ace waves him off, turning slightly away. “keep it.”

sabo’s brows raise. “isn’t it important?”

_ this meeting is important _, he thinks. “give it back the next time you see me,” he says instead, because he’s not willing to give up.

sabo blinks, unsure of how to respond, but another call of his name reaches them before he can decide. so, instead of a proper answer, he holds out the band again to ace, and his bare wrist with the other. “tie it for me, then,” he says, and ace feels a grin forming as he steps forward, because it’d been a long time since he’d heard words so daring coming from the blond.

-

sabo climbs into the backseat, and shanks squints at him from the rearview mirror.

“isn’t that ace’s?” he asks, gesturing to the cord wrapped around sabo’s wrist.

he looks down at it, humming. “i’m just holding onto it.”

-

sabo can’t sleep that night.

he feels like he’s _ missing _ something, and it keeps him up.

  
  
  


he wanders into the kitchen the next morning, eyes dry and red, and makino looks at him with concern. she gets up from her place at the table for two, letting sabo sit across from shanks.

“you look terrible,” he notes.

sabo hums, not enough energy mustered to form a snarky comeback.

“you . . are going to do great today!” shanks says next, switching tactics when he notices makino’s stare from the sink. “fuck those people from yesterday. today you’ve got this!”

he heads off before too long, leaving sabo at the table alone. makino heads out too, leaving sabo to watch micah while she worked her day shift. not that he minded. he was there for the week, and this was the least he could do.

he switches with shanks around midday, and comes back to the redhead in the exact spot he’d left him.

“how’d it go?” shanks asks, and sabo’s lips quirk down.

“i picked a more competitive career than i thought,” he mutters.

he crashes for a few hours and wakes up as the sun is setting, mind still set on something he can’t seem to remember.

he doesn’t sleep again.

early, the next morning, sabo decides he’s had enough. he gets out of bed, giving up on sleep, and turns on his desk lamp.

makino is in the kitchen. she looks tired. she doesn’t look surprised to find sabo there, messing with the old coffeemaker. instead of questioning, she pulls out two mugs and a carton of eggs. 

sabo fills up both and takes one back to his room, closing the door softly. he sets it at his desk, and a minute later he’s hefting all twenty of his notebooks right next to it.

sabo’s never really read through his logs. there’s never been a need. he’s never forgotten.

but there’s a _ gap _. one he hadn’t noticed until now.

and he _ hates _ forgetting.

so he steels himself, divides the stack in two to see the light, and begins flipping through the first notebook before the sun has thought to rise for the day.

  
  
  
  


he’s a third of the way through notebook nine when he pauses, hand going through the motions to flip the page and freezing, and he peels it back to still find something unusual written, uncertain now that it wasn’t his tired mind trying to pull a trick on him.

he marks the page and rises from his seat, digging around until he finds an old sketchbook, all but one of the pages ripped from the spiral, stacked loosely inside.

it’s the one attached that he’s interested in.

“who are you,” he mumbles, reading the sprawling script, near covering the entire page, aloud. 

“quit writing in my sketchbook.”

“surely one page is fine.”

he pauses, continues, voice picking up, heart rate steadily increasing.

“this isn’t a dream, y’know.”

  
  
  
  
  


his coffee has gone cold, so he sets it on the corner of the old wood, not willing to get up and leave his reading to warm it.

he’s missing days in the notebook. well, _ he _ is. they’re there, after a spell. just in a different handwriting, a different format. 

he has trouble reading them, at first, because it’s very hard to process. but the more he does, the more dread and wonder pool in his stomach, as he realizes the impossibilities of him doing this to himself, playing some sort of trick years in the making. this person, this _ ace _, was undeniably different, and was taking control of sabo’s life every other day.

sabo’s notes weren’t very interesting, usually. it was either long, unending paragraphs ranting or rambling about the day, or neat, precise notes for more uneventful times. but, after ace started leaving entries, sabo’s changed.

he still wrote for the sake of logging, yes, but now the margins were filled. certain things, reminders for tests or important events, were more bolded and circled, easy to catch. like that was the point, to get someone to notice. he finds himself reading the notes more closely than his own entries.

_ please set my alarm from now on. at least three of them. preferably all five. _

_ quit writing all over my face!! i get it! _

_ i finished that report. just print it out and bring it, please. _

_ sorry if you wake up tired. had a long night. _

_ yeah, sorry. here’s the password. _

_ if i have to scrub ink from my face one more time i swear ace portgas i will take permanent marker to your eyebrows. _

_ let’s make this easier for ourselves. if we write about what we did when we switch, it won’t matter that we weren’t there. we’ll be all caught up for the next day. _

  
  
  
  


_ we didn’t switch again. _

sabo blinks. he turns to the next page, again met by his own handwriting.

_ we still haven’t switched. i’ve been drawing, what i could remember. it’s funny, i just realized today that i don’t even know where he lives. somewhere in japan, in the corvo mountains. but it’s a big mountain range. there are a lot of settlements. i draw everything i can remember. the old vending machine out near the high school. the view of the mountains from the lake’s shore. the inside of garp’s craft room. my calls still aren’t going through. i try and convince myself that the number’s not wrong, but every time i try again, it ends the same. i tried texting, but it didn’t send. _

_ it’s weird. after that night, after i finally convinced myself how i felt, that i really well. _

_ and then it all stopped. like it really was a dream. except, i still have his cord. i wear it all the time, like i’m afraid it’ll disappear too, if i leave it alone for too long. i can’t lose it. i can’t lose anything else. _

_ i don’t want to believe i’ve lost him, either. _

the next entry he finds worth to note is only a sentence long. it’s the shortest one he’s ever seen. 

_ i’m going to find him tomorrow. _

he turns the page. the next entry is marked a few days after that, after he’d come home, apparently. if he ever left at all.

he bites on his lip, moving the page corner between his fingers, flipping back and forth as if the missing entries would magically appear.

he sighs after they don’t, leaning back in his chair and throwing his head back.

out his window, through the blinds, it’s lighter. he blinks tiredly at it, trying to process this fact.

muffled crying from further in the apartment breaks his train of thought. sabo sits up, leans over the desk, and grabs the coffee cup, intent on refilling it before he read through the other half of the stack.

as he’s standing, though, his gaze falls to his wrist, and his feet fall still. he stares.

the red cord from the other night is still wrapped around his arm.

-

sabo meets robin one day for coffee, because she’s in the city by chance, and he’s looking for something to do.

he’d already had coffee that morning, but he definitely wasn’t passing up the chance for more.

makino had turned the machine off on him after his fourth cup, and even as she left to take micah on a walk, he hadn’t the courage to turn it back on.

shanks had woken up and walked in on him still mulling over his notebooks, this time with the added bonus of all his sketches laid out across his desk. he’d quietly closed the door after seeing sabo had spend yet another night without any sleep, and left for work soon after.

sabo slips into a loose jacket, attempts to flatten his hair that had been ruffled through in his earlier musing, and drains half a bottle of water in hopes of clearing the more gaunt part of his expression.

he thinks it maybe does. somewhat. robin doesn’t bother to mention it, so he doesn’t think about it anymore.

instead, halfway through their light conversation about life as they trekked through the city, he thinks about something else. he casts glances down to his wrist, where the cord was tied, leaning against his coffee cup. robin stops talking and he finally looks up to her questioning gaze. he feels like he’s missed a cue to respond, but instead of trying to figure it out, he throws one back at her.

“hey. when we worked together, did i ever . . . mention an ace portgas?”

robin’s eyes narrow, and she hums, still walking forward. “wasn’t that who you went to go find, that one summer?”

he turns his eyes back to their path, thinking it over. it synced up. so she knew about his trip, the one missing from notebook number nine. entirely.

“did i find him?” he asks, almost scared of his own voice.

“you found fuusha,” robin answers, not the one he wanted, but an answer nonetheless.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


sabo gets home and rips his desk drawer open, taking out all the articles on fuusha and lying them across his desk.

they don’t all fit, so he lies them across the floor instead, taking time to examine each of them.

he reads them all carefully, about the comet, about the crash, about the evacuation. fuusha was nestled in the corvo mountains, so it matched up. 

_ wait. _

he purses his lips, stands so fast he trips and nearly tumbles over, gripping the back of his desk chair. he swipes notebook nine from the desk, moves to sit back on the floor, and rifles through the pages. _ there _.

_ by the time your date is over, you’ll be able to see the comet. _

the date was the same as miran comet, though the years were different. his eyebrows slant. that was odd. something still wasn’t adding up.

he stands again, another fleeting thought passing through.

  
  
  


“makino,” he mumbles just inside the kitchen doorway.

she looks up, turning away from micah in the highchair.

“can i get luffy monkey’s address?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


this was crazy.

sabo sighs, dropping his hand away from the door for the fourth time. he couldn’t knock. what was he even thinking, coming here? sure, these were the only people from fuusha he knew, but he didn’t really even known them. he’d greeted garp in passing, he’d seen his son once, and he hadn’t even met luffy, that night.

but. he did know the other brother. sort of. at least, he had some connection with him, now.

he drops his raised arm again. but! there were over one thousand people living in fuusha, back before the comet hit! even if they could help him, would they even know the person sabo had been switching bodies with?

he raises his arm before he can think of another excuse to walk off the porch.

the door opens as he’s reaching to knock.

sabo startles back, the door swinging open all the way. a scruffy head of black hair greets him, the boy nearly a whole head shorter than him still bent over to stuff on a pair of shoes. his head raises as he attempts to step forward, finding sabo in his way. he’s met with a wide pair of eyes.

sabo tries to smile, but he’s nervous now, and he doesn’t think he does a very good job. “uh, hi,” he begins. “luffy, right?”

“luffy” picks his hand out of the back of his shoe, letting the leg fall to the ground as he straightens to full height. “yeah. who’re you, though?”

sabo nearly slaps himself. of course. he didn’t even- “i’m sabo.” he offers his hand. “i was here the other night, for your graduation party.”

luffy doesn’t take sabo’s hand, but he stares at it for a long time. he realizes it’s the hand he has the braided cord wrapped around. “oh, that’s-”

“my brother’s,” luffy finishes, looking back up. there’s a new light in his eyes. “you said your name was sabo, right?”

“yeah.” he nods. “is, um. is your brother here?”

a wide smile slowly begins to form on luffy’s face. “no. but i can tell you where he will be.”

-

[ 6:23 ] ill b home late

[ 6:24 ] you have your key?

[ 6:24 ] yeah

[ 6:27 ] Then i won’t wait up

[ 6:28 ] Take care of yourself

sabo sets his phone facedown, his lips quirking up. he feels around his pockets to make sure he has his key, not wanting to give makino anymore worry. he settles down again when he finds it, fingers pressing into the cool metal.

outside, it starts snowing.

sabo watches it, gaze fixed on the large windows he’s sat in front of. there’s a drink in front of him, steam wafting up. his phone vibrates again.

he picks it up as the tingling bell signals the door opening. the passing conversation catches his attention, though.

“lighten up, kidd. this will be the last one, i swear!”

“you said that the last time.”

sabo sets his phone back down. he tries not to stare, but as they order at the counter, then turn to find a table, he can’t help but watch the pair. he’s certain he’s never seen them before. at least, he doesn’t recognize them. but that name . .

“i just want this wedding to be perfect,” the girl mutters, sat close enough to where sabo can hear. 

“i know, lami,” kidd says, ducking forward. the name strikes sabo, again. lami. and kidd. 

his eyes narrow. he turns back to the window.

it’s still snowing.

he hikes up his scarf at the thought of venturing out into it, phantom goosebumps rising on his covered skin. his eyes watch as people walk by, the streets still relatively crowded for the hour, considering it was a weekday.

he takes a sip from his drink, content on people-watching.

“-like from fuusha?”

his ears prick as they catch on to the word, and he inclines his head slightly to hear the conversation behind him.

“no. maybe? i . . i don’t know.” a sigh. “i think i just miss it, y’know? it’s that time of year and all.”

sabo blinks, and then his eyes catch on a figure coming across the street. he bends forward, catches sight of dark, mused hair beneath a hood, freckles lined on tanned skin-

the door opens and he reaches out, having chosen the seat nearest to it for a reason. his hand snags in black fabric, right at the elbow, and he holds tight. 

  
  
  
  


the door closes again and sabo looks up, seeing the surprised look just moving off of luffy’s brother’s face, replaced by something more knowing, like he knew exactly who sabo was.

_ or _ , his mind supplies, _ luffy just told him. _

he turns to face sabo and the blond releases his sleeve, confident that he’s gained the attention he’d been seeking. carefully, not looking away from the other’s face, he undoes the knot tying the braided cord to his wrist, and holds it out in the space between them.

“you should have this back,” he mumbles. “it’s important to you.”

_ you’re important to me. _

sabo blinks.

freckles reaches out, carefully, and after a moment cups sabo’s hand in both of his own. he’s smiling, now, faint and soft, but definitely still there. his hands are cold around sabo’s.

“thank you,” he says, removing his hands, dragging the cord with them. sabo resists the urge to frown as they leave, suddenly missing their presence. they’re back soon enough, though, as ace holds the cord out length-wise, presents it to sabo. “then, will you tie it for me?”

sabo takes the cord back. his eyes widen. wait-

  
  
  
  


he looks up. “you never told me your name,” he whispers.

“you already know it.”

  
  
  


“ace?”

“hey, sabo.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think i held off for long enough to post this, so here it is ! if you made it to the end, ty!! let me know what you think!
> 
> [tumblr](http://cheswirls.tumblr.com)


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